
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



V 




INTRODUCTION 

TO 



THE STUDY OF ENGLISH 
LITERATURE 

v.. 

BY 

VIDA D. SCUDDER, A.M. 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 
AT WELLESLEY COLLEGE 




GLOBE SCHOOL BOOK COMPANY 

NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 



1 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

MAY, 11 1901 

CQPYfWGHT ENTRY 

CLASS (XxXc. N». 
COPY 8. 




Copyright, 1901, by 
Globe School Book Company. 



ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL, LONDON. 

M. P. I. 



MANHATTAN PRESS 
474 WEST BROADWAY 
NEW YORK 



PREFACE 



It is no light matter to present within five hun- 
dred and fifty pages the story of the imaginative life 
of a nation as found in its literature. No one can 
hope for absolute success in such a task. The excuse 
for adding to the already long list of histories of 
English literature is that the subject is inexhaustible. 
The point of view of each new narrator must bring 
into relief fresh aspects of the great story, and sug- 
gest, at least in detail, new lines of approach for the 
student. 

This book aims, like all modern text-books, not to 
supplant, but to accompany the direct and copious 
reading of texts. The Suggestions for Class Work 
and for Talks from the Teacher are not merely theo- 
retical ; they may in some cases appear at first too 
advanced, but they have been well tested in a prac- 
tical experience of over ten years in the class-room. 
Their application in detail will of course depend on 
the grade of the class. If the teacher of literature 
is not prepared to give certain lectures, a teacher 
of history or of art in the same school may well be 
asked to do so. Occasional interchange of appoint- 
ments among the different departments is indeed 
a very salutary thing ; it checks the student's often 
inveterate instinct to hold different forms of national 
or individual expression in distinct water-tight com- 

3 



4 



PKEFACE 



partments of his mind, as if they had nothing to do 
with one another. 

No attempt has been made to outline work for the 
advanced scholar of college or university. On the 
other hand, the book is beyond the scope of gram- 
mar schools. It seeks to meet the needs of the high 
school and of the younger classes in college. 

Any short history of literature must of course 
proceed on a strictly selective principle. Many in- 
teresting people and sundry not unimportant phases 
of literary development must remain unnoticed. The 
method here chosen has been to present a fairly full 
outline of authors, their works, and contemporary 
events in Tables arranged for easy reference, and, so 
far as possible, to disencumber the text of details 
which the young student is sure to forget. Each 
part of the book opens with a brief chapter of gen- 
eral statements, picturing the period to be treated, 
or describing its characteristics ; this has been done 
in the belief that a few sound introductory generali- 
zations help to start the student right in his personal 
inductive study of any period. Emphasis is placed 
on the greatest or most significant figures, to each 
of whom a chapter, or a long section in a chapter, 
has been allotted. Authors of secondary impor- 
tance, however fascinating, have been relegated to 
the background, and grouped to illustrate the char- 
acteristics of their periods. The time for close and 
loving study of figures less than the greatest will 
come later ; but the young student needs to gain first 
a sense of the great movements of national life as 
expressed in literature, and a clear picture of the 
Masters. Perspective has to be carefully considered 



PREFACE 



5 



if these ends are to be attained. Too many facts 
concerning authors not to be known at first hand 
simply deaden the mind. 

More stress has been placed than is customary in 
books of this kind on the period before Chaucer. 
This is in accord with the modern tendency which 
is bringing into ever clearer light the significance of 
our origins and the imaginative achievement of the 
great mediaeval centuries, and is recognizing more and 
more that some knowledge of these things is essen- 
tial to a right understanding of English literature. 

If specific references to history are few in these 
pages, it is because the study of literature and of 
history should always go on side by side, and no one 
book can treat both subjects. Literature bears only 
indirect relation, however, to dynasties and wars, 
while it bears direct relation to that life of the whole 
people whence it proceeds. This life, in its varying 
manifestations and in its onward movement, the 
book tries constantly to suggest to the student's 
consciousness. Instead of enumerating a series of 
unconnected facts, it seeks to tell a consecutive 
story. 

For chronology, the book leans in the main, 
though with occasional rectifications, on Ryland's 
" Chronological Outlines of English Literature " and 
Nichol's " Tables of European History, Literature," 
etc. Leading authorities are not constantly re- 
peated in references in the text, but no work would 
be possible unless the elaborate treatment of sepa- 
rate periods by modern scholars had led the way. 
Among books frequently used may be mentioned 
the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," the "Dictionary of 



6 



PREFACE 



National Biography," Traill's " Social England," 
Green's "Short History of the English People," 
Saintsbury's " Short History of English Literature," 
Courthope's " History of English Poetry," Ten 
Brink's "English Literature" (3 vols.), Stopford 
Brooke's " English Literature from the Beginning 
to the Norman Conquest," Henry Morley's "Eng- 
lish Writers," Jusserand's " Literary History of the 
English People," " Periods of European Literature " 
(Series, edited by Saintsbury), Saintsbury's "Eliza- 
bethan Literature," Gosse's "History of Eighteenth 
Century Literature," Stephen's " History of English 
Thought in the Eighteenth Century," Saintsbury's 
"History of Nineteenth Century Literature," Har- 
ford's "The Age of Wordsworth," Stedman's "Victo- 
rian Poets," Introductions to the "Warwick Li- 
brary" and the "Athenaeum Press Series." 

For the tables on different periods and the Index, 
I am indebted to my friend and former pupil, 
Florence Converse, B.S. The tables on Chaucer, 
Shakespeare, Milton, were prepared by my friend, 
Lucy H. Smith, A.B. 



CONTENTS 



PART I 
THE SOURCES 

PAGE 

Introduction 17 

Celtic Literature 20 

Anglo-Saxon Literature 28 

Norman Literature 44 

Literature in Latin 48 

PART II 

THE MIDDLE AGES 

CHAPTER I 
General Conditions 

I. A Period of Expansion 53 

II. Literary Conditions 56 

III. Mediaeval Life Pictured 58 

IV. Governing Forces 62 

CHAPTER II 
The Chief Phases of Medleval Literature 

I. Chivalry and Catholicism : their Literary Results . 65 

II. Literature of Chivalry 67 

III. Literature of Catholicism 74 

7 



8 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER III 



Literature produced in England 

PAGE 

I. Work in French and Latin on English Soil . . .78 

II. The Growth of the English 80 

III. Literature in English 84 

CHAPTER IV 
Geoffrey Chaucer 

I. Chaucer's Writings a Summary of the Middle Ages . 100 

II. Chaucer's Personality 103 

III. Chaucer's Work 108 

IV. Chaucer's Art and Place 116 

CHAPTER V 
The Contemporaries of Chaucer 

I. Lesser Writers of the Fourteenth Century . ■ . 130 
II. Langland and the Social Revolt 133 

III. Wyclif and the Religious Revolt 144 

CHAPTER VI 

The Mediaeval Drama 149 

CHAPTER VII 
The Fifteenth Century 

I. Chaucerian Imitators 156 

II. Scotch Literature 158 

III. Ballads 160 

IV. The Decadence of the Middle Ages . . . .162 



CONTENTS 



PART III 

THE RENAISSANCE 
CHAPTER I 

PA( 

The Rebikth 1( 

CHAPTER II 

Learning and Poetry under Henry VIII 

I. The New Learning 11 

II. The New Art li 

CHAPTER III 

Outlines of Elizabethan Literature . . . .11 
CHAPTER IV 

Sir Philip Sidney 1( 

CHAPTER V 
General Literature 

I. Elizabethan Prose . . . . . . . 2( 

II. Elizabethan Translations 2( 

III. Elizabethan Lyrics 2( 

CHAPTER VI 
Edmund Spenser 

I. Spenser's Life 2. 

II. The "Eaerie Queene" 2. 

CHAPTER VII 

The Early Drama 

I. Development 229 

II. Types 230 

III. The Predecessors of Shakespeare 232 



10 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER VIII 



William Shakespeare 

PAGE 

I. The Elizabethan Stage 235 

II. Shakespeare's Life 236 

III. Shakespeare's Work 239 

IV. Shakespeare's Art 251 

CHAPTER IX 

The Decline of the Drama 

I. Grouping and Chronology 257 

II. Ben Jonson 258 

III. The Romantic Dramatists 261 



CHAPTER X 

Verse and Prose of the Later Renaissance 

I. Historical and Literary Conditions .... 265 

II. Seventeenth-Century Poetry 267 

III. Seventeenth-Century Prose 271 



CHAPTER XI 
John Milton 



I. Milton's Life and Early Work 287 

II. "Paradise Lost" 292 

III. Last Work and Death .296 

CHAPTER XII 

The Literature of Puritanism 

I. Puritan Literature 302 

II. Satires on Puritanism 306 



CONTENTS 



11 



PAET IV 
THE AGE OF PROSE 

CHAPTER I 
The Change in Taste 



page 

I. The New Temper 311 

II. Periods of the Age of Prose 312 

III. Characteristics of the Age of Prose .... 314 

CHAPTER II 

The Age of Dryden 

I. Revival of Classicism 320 

II. John Dry den 321 

III. Other Literature of the Restoration .... 327 

CHAPTER III 

The Age or Queen Anne : its Poet . . . . . 333 

CHAPTER IV 
Prose of the* Age of Queen Anne 

I. The Rise of Prose 342 

II. Jonathan Swift 343 

III. Daniel Defoe 347 

IV. Addison and Steele . 348 

CHAPTER V 

The Rise of the Novel 

I. Samuel Richardson 357 

II. Henry Fielding 360 

III. Other Novelists 362 

IV. Reasons for the Rise of the Novel 363 



12 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER VI 
Johnson and his Times 

PAGE 



I. Samuel Johnson 365 

II. Oliver Goldsmith 4 .372 

CHAPTER VII 

The Intellectual Movement 

I. Literature of Art 378 

II. Literature of Thought 379 

III. The Trend of Thought 382 

CHAPTER VIII 

The Romantic Revival 

I. The Return to Nature 386 

II. Quickening of the Imagination 388 

III. Literary Revivals 392 

IV. The Methodist Movement 394 



PART V 
MODERN ENGLAND 

CHAPTER I 
The Heralds : Burns and Blake 



I. The New Notes 403 

II. Robert Burns 404 

III. William Blake 407 

CHAPTER II 

The New Democracy 

I. Review of Forces making for Democracy '. . . 411 

II. The French Revolution and Literature .... 412 

III. English Poets of the Revolution 417 



CONTENTS 



13 



CHAPTER III 



From Wordsworth to Keats 

PAGB 

I. " Lyrical Ballads," Character and Significance . . 420 

II. Wordsworth, Coleridge, South ey 422 

III. Byron, Shelley, Keats 429 

IV. General Characteristics 440 

CHAPTER IV 

Prose till 1830 

I. Fiction .445 

II. Essay 450 

CHAPTER V 

Conditions of Victorian Literature 

I. The Forces at Work 459 

II. The Decade of Origins 464 

CHAPTER VI 

Victorian Fiction 

I. Charles Dickens 468 

II. William Makepeace Thackeray 472 

HE. Mary Anne Evans (George Eliot) 477 

IV. Other Novelists 482 

CHAPTER VII 

Victorian Essayists 

I. Thomas Babington Macaulay . . . . . 486 

II. Thomas Carlyle 487 

III. John Henry Newman 492 

IV. John Ruskin 493 

V. Matthew Arnold 498 

VI. Later Essayists 502 



14 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER VIII 
Victorian Poetry 



PAGE 

I. Minor Schools 505 

II. Alfred Tennyson 512 

III. Elizabeth Barrett Browning 516 

IV. Robert Browning 516 

V. Conclusion 520 

INDICES 

I. Books and their Authors 527 

II. Bibliographical References 537 



TABLES 



The Pre-Chaucerian Period, 1066-1350 90 

Chaucer's Works 120 

The Period of Chaucer's Influence, 1350-1500 . . .124 

The Early Renaissance, 1500-1579 192 

Shakespeare's Plays , 256 

The Later Renaissance, 1579-1650 277 

Milton's Life and Works 298 

The Age of Dry den, 1660-1702 330 

The Age of Pope and Swift, 1702-1744 354 

The Age of Johnson, 1744-1789 375 

The Revolutionary Period, 1789-1830 456 

The Victorian Writers, 1830-1900 523 



PAET I 

THE SOURCES 



INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH 
LITERATURE 



INTRODUCTION 

ENGLISH literature is the literature produced 
by the English race,. It belongs not merely to 
the people who live in the British Isles, but also to 
us here in America, and to all other people who use 
the English tongue. In studying, as we are to do, 
the great books produced on English soil, we must 
feel, not that we are trying to understand something 
foreign and alien, but that we are entering into pos- 
session of our birthright. 

When we wish to understand any one, we ask two 
important questions : Who were his parents ? and, 
What have been his surroundings ? Inheritance and 
environment are as important to a nation as to a 
man. Now up to the time of Chaucer we have to 
trace the heredity, to watch the ancestors, of our 
English literature. After that time the literature is 
born, a fresh power in the world, and we watch what 
happens to it under different masters ; the influences 
that play upon it from other nations — France, Italy, 
Spain, Palestine, Rome, and Greece. These influ- 
ences modify and affect it very much, for it is sen- 
sitive ; but they cannot change its nature — that is 
determined by its inheritance. This inheritance we 
will now begin at once to study. 

17 



18 



THE SOURCES 



Few nations have had a nobler heritage ; few a 
heritage so complex. Some peoples are simple in 
origin ; ours is composite. A variety of elements 
went to its making ; and on this account English 
literature seems, at least to us English-speaking folk, 
the more interesting, expressive, and rich. 

The life of three great races has passed into our 
literature, and can be traced there, from century to 
century, even when distinct racial existence has long 
been lost in the wider personality of the nation. 
These three are the Celtic, the Anglo-Saxon, and 
the Norman. 

The Celts were in England first. Of their ori- 
gin we do not know much, except that, like all the 
peoples who live in modern Europe, they travelled 
toward the western shores long before history began. 
Our first knowledge finds them established in what 
are now England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and 
also across the sea, in the fair, wide land of France. 
In the first century of our era the masters of the 
world, the Romans, invaded and partially subdued 
the British Isles ; and through the Romans, Chris- 
tianity came to Britain. Early in the fifth century 
the Roman legions were withdrawn, to defend the 
mother-city from the invasion of the Teutonic bar- 
barians. 

Later in this century these same barbarians, great 
hordes from the Northlands of Germany and Scandi- 
navia, whom we call Anglo-Saxons from the name 
of their two most important tribes, bore down upon 
the British like a flood, submerged them completely 
in England, and took and held for hundreds of years 
possession of the land. These Anglo-Saxons, how- 



INTRODUCTION 



19 



ever, left Ireland, Scotland, and Wales mainly Celtic, 
as they are to this day. Nor were the Celts as fully 
exterminated even in England as used to be sup- 
posed. Not only Celtic place-names, but a Celtic 
quality which the English have never lost, show that 
the Celts must have blended their traditions with 
those of their successors. This subtle Celtic spirit 
survived even the Norman invasion. 

For the Anglo-Saxons did not stay masters. In 
the eleventh century came the Normans, and con- 
quered in their turn. They had been, to begin with, 
cousins of the Anglo-Saxons, these Normans ; but 
they had lived a long time in what is now France, 
and intermarried there ; and the old Latin civiliza- 
tion had affected them and taught them grace and 
power. So it came to pass that they became in their 
turn the masters of England, and for the time checked 
all native expression on English soil. During sev- 
eral centuries it seemed as if literature in England 
were to be only a pallid reflection of that across 
the Channel. But this was not true. The litera- 
ture of England was to become mighty and original. 
And when its great music at last made itself heard, 
the strains from three races clearly blended in its 
harmony. 

Each of these races had a literature of its own 
before they came together. It is necessary to glance 
at them separately, if we would understand what 
happened when they were united. 



20 



THE SOURCES 



CELTIC LITERATURE 

Celtic literature is almost all made up of stories. 
There is a great deal of it ; for the Celts were, at 
least in Ireland, a civilized and even a learned peo- 
ple, centuries before the stronger Anglo-Saxons 
threw them into the shadow. Much of their litera- 
ture reflects an earlier period when they were still 
living in a Pagan, primitive, heroic sort of way ; 
but this literature was carefully preserved and 
written down — it had been at first chanted, not 
written — after Celtic Britain became Christianized. 
The bard had always held among the Celts a su- 
premely honorable position : he was regarded with 
mystic reverence, and when the monks sprang up 
in vast numbers in Ireland after the introduction of 
Christianity, they constituted themselves the loving 
protectors of the bards, and wrote down probably 
from their lips all they could glean of the old poetry 
of the nation. Moreover, they added to it a large 
amount, Christian in inspiration. Inedited manu- 
scripts enough to fill twelve or fourteen hundred 
octavo volumes of print are said to exist in Ireland 
alone. 

Some of this literature is prose, some poetry, but 
even the poetry is usually founded on tales. The 
Celts were great story-tellers; and their literature is 
still a great treasure-house of delight for children, 
and for those grown-up people who are as wise as 
children. 

This love of story-telling means that the strongest 
quality in the Celt was imagination ; the fertility of 
invention and play of fancy in Celtic literature is 



CELTIC LITERATURE 



21 



astounding. Next to imagination, sentiment was its 
chief note ; it was as easy for the old Celt as it is 
for the modern Irish to touch the springs of tears 
and laughter in swift succession. In no primitive 
literature is the purely poetic appeal so strong. We 
yield ourselves as we read to a fairy world, full of 
bewildering magic, lovely images, strange events, 
and delicate or fierce emotions. Reason and the 
moral sense seem far away ; and for the time we do 
not miss them in the least. 

The Celt saw the world bathed in glamour with 
eyes sensitive to beauty and color, whether in nature, 
in costume, in building, or in the human form. He 
felt an eager delight in the detail of landscape : — 

" Bright are the tops of the brakes ; gay the plumage 
Of birds ; the long day is the gift of the light." 

" Bain without, the fern is drenched ; 
White the gravel of the sea; there is spray on the 
margin." 1 

To find nature-touches delicately truthful as these 
in any other primitive literature would be hard 
indeed. Description broadly handled, or pervaded 
by a spirit of gloom or unrest, is less natural to the 
Celt ; yet no one could impart more vividly than he, 
when he chose, the thrill of imaginative terror and 
mystery. Above the head of the hero in his par- 
oxysm of battle-fury was formed, we are told, — 

"A magic mist of gloom resembling the smoky pall 
that drapes a regal dwelling, what time a king at night- 
fall of a winter's day draws near to it." 2 

1 " The Four Ancient Books of Wales." Edited by W. F. Skene. 

2 "The Cuchullin Saga," edited by Eleanor Hull, p. 175. 



22 



THE SOURCES 



The sense of strange enchantment suggested by 
words like these broods over all Celtic literature. 
The recognition of cause and effect is almost wholly 
absent, and the supernatural may at any moment 
break in upon us. Fairy maidens lure the heroes 
away to far lands of youth beyond our human ken ; 
adventures indescribably fantastic or grotesque are 
the order of the day. Yet despite the frequent ab- 
surdity, the chief note of the Celtic fairy-lore is 
poetic beauty : — 

" Graceful and beautiful was the flock of birds. There 
were nine times twenty of them, yoked together two and 
two by a chain of silver ; ... at the head of each group 
flew two birds in varied plumage." 1 

In this supernatural world move the heroes of Celtic 
story, and they are human only by the strength of 
their passions. These are fierce indeed. When Cu- 
chullin's battle-fury is satiated, he plunges into three 
baths for refreshment. He heats the water of the 
first bath till it boils, the water of the second be- 
comes too hot for hand to bear, while the water of 
the third is tepid. We gain little sense of moral 
uplift in reading about him and his compeers. They 
are voluble, bragging, jealous, and even their personal 
beauty and their prowess are so exaggerated as to 
turn into grotesque. But one must not take them 
as human beings ; they are rather semi-mythological 
creatures, descendants of sun-myths, maybe, and true 
progenitors of fairies and giants. Their lives are 
made up of a wealth of disconnected incidents, in 
which the extraordinary inventiveness of the Celt 

1 "The Cuchullin Saga," p. 15. 



CELTIC LITERATURE 



23 



has free play, but which move as a rule to no great 
end of epic achievement. They fascinate us for a 
time ; but by and by we weary of them, we weary of 
all the brilliant, incoherent enchantments of Celtic 
literature, and we long to return to the world of 
reality, where reason and conscience have a fuller 
share in the determination of fate. 

Several of our illustrations have been taken from 
the old Irish epics : these are perhaps the most 
important monuments of Celtic literature. There 
were three cycles, each binding together many 
separate stories. The first was about a semi-super- 
natural people called the Tuatha-De-Danann ; they 
probably represent some race of ancient gods in 
whom the Celts may have believed before their 
migration. The second, of later origin, gathers 
around the great king Conchobar and Cuchullin, 
his comrade. In the story of the Tragical Death of 
the Sons of Usnach, which belongs to this cycle, 
Celtic emotion is more marked than Celtic extrava- 
gance : it is full of pure poetry and tragic passion. 
But the third cycle has become the most famous. 
Its events are placed as late as the third century 
A.D., but it is purely Pagan still. It tells of Finn 
the mighty, of Oscar, and above all of Ossian, the 
poet-warrior, most typical figure of Celtic song. 
These Ossianic poems were first gathered from oral 
tradition in Scotland and given to the world in 
garbled version by Macpherson, in the eighteenth 
century. Later they were discovered, and in fuller 
form, in Ireland also. People were well puzzled, and 
controversy raged high : first, whether Macpherson's 
Ossian were not an invention of his own ; then, later, 



24 



THE SOURCES 



whether Ireland or Scotland were the native land of 
the legends. But we know now that the story is 
truly ancient, however strangely Macpherson trans- 
formed it, and that it came into being when Ireland 
and Scotland were all one country and shared their 
literature. Nothing more strikingly evinces the 
unity of Celtic Britain than this common posses- 
sion of ancient tales. 

These old epics with their Pagan spirit are linked 
in an interesting way with the Christian literature of 
the Celts. The king Conchobar, so runs the legend, 
was born on the same day with Christ. Another 
legend unites the Ossianic story with St. Patrick. 
The saint was busy converting Ireland, and the sound 
of church bells was heard in the land. One evening 
he and his gentle monks saw approaching a noble look- 
ing man, majestic of stature, dazed and mournful in 
aspect. This was Ossian, last of Finn's warriors, who 
had long been magically detained in fairy-land, and 
returned at last to find the heroes dead and the 
saints replacing them. Patrick bent himself to the 
conversion of Ossian, and curious poems tell of the 
colloquies between the puzzled but courteous old 
hero and the Christian saint. Ossian obediently 
tried to understand this strange, tame, unheroic new 
faith, and used his great strength as Patrick bade to 
carry stones for a church ; but he yearned for his old 
freedom, and the religion of humility seemed strange 
indeed to his Pagan soul. He loved to exchange 
tales about the mighty Finn for Patrick's rhapsodies 
on the New J erusalem. His great longing was that 
his dear comrades should inherit this new Paradise : 
"Unknown to Heaven's king," he cries, "bring thou 



CELTIC LITERATURE 



25 



in the Finns." 1 When Patrick says that God would 
find him out and be angry, Ossian retorts, not 
without force : " How different Mac Cumhail, the 
Finns' noble king ! All men, uninvited, might enter 
his great hall." On the whole, we feel that he can- 
not have been an entirely satisfactory convert. 

But the Celts in general seem to have accepted 
Christianity with ease, and to have found in it, almost 
from the first, elements congenial to their national 
character. Celtic Christianity, as the monuments 
which have come down to us would seem to show, 
was steeped rather in Christian sentiment than in 
Christian principle. Many of the Celtic Christian 
stories, — the Voyage of St. Brandan, the lives of 
St. Patrick, St. Bridget, and, above all, of St. 
Columba, — are full of rare and exquisite beauty. 
They have the same imaginative qualities as the 
Pagan Celtic literature, even to the frequent incon- 
sequence and delightful disregard of logic; but the 
old fierceness has been replaced by a wistful and 
gentle note of Christian mysticism. Sometimes, as 
in the curious Welsh triads, little poems of three 
lines each, such as we have quoted above, the Celts 
took to moralizing after they were converted ; but 
they never made much of a success at this, and the 
distinctive quality of their religion can be found in 
lovely legends, such as were produced from the 
earliest times, and may still be heard, in long winter 
evenings, recited around the hearth-fire in the High- 
lands of Scotland. 

For the Celtic spirit lives on. Arthur the Celt, 

1 " The Book of the Dean of Lismore. ' ' Introduction by William 
F. Skene. 



26 THE SOURCES 

not Beowulf the Teuton, is the chosen hero of dreams 
to the English race. They have a strange old legend 
in Wales about Merlin, most mystic figure among the 
wizards of the world. He was befooled in his old 
age by a fair woman, for she persuaded him to tell 
her the Secret of the Prison of Air ; and no sooner 
had she learned it than she spoke the magic spell he 
taught and shut up the aged enchanter ; then she fled 
mocking through the forest, and he remains forever 
enclosed, helpless in his air dungeon, invisible to 
man. But every now and then, from the clearness 
of empty space, a voice will be heard, singing won- 
drous songs or uttering strange wisdom, always with 
an undernote of wailing sorrow. It is the voice of 
Merlin, who can never die. For many centuries 
after the Anglo-Saxon conquest the Celts seemed to 
vanish ; the Normans recked nothing of them ; great 
civilizations arose that knew them not ; and to this 
day they have never resumed their place among the 
nations. But their voice, the music of their song, 
can still be heard by him who listens, sounding from 
century to century, as the great history of England 
goes on. This voice, this music, will never pass 
away. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

General References. Matthew Arnold, On the Study of 
Celtic Literature. Jusserand, Literary History of the English 
People, Ch. I. Morley, English Writers, Vol. I, Bk. I, Chs. 
I-III ; Influence of the Celt on English Literature, in Clement 
Marot, and Other Essays. William Sharp, Lyra Celtica, Intro- 
duction. Montalembert, The Monks of the West. 

Irish Literature. Douglas Hyde, The Story of Early Gaelic 
Literature : a Literary History of Ireland. Montalembert, 
The Monks of the West, esp. Bk. IX, St. Columba. Standish 



CELTIC LITERATURE 



27 



O 'Grady, History of Ireland, Essay on Early Bardic Literature in 
Vol. II. Eugene O'Curry, Lectures on the Manuscript Materials 
of Ancient Lush History ; On the Manners and Customs of the 
Ancient Irish. Douglas Hyde, Beside the Fire : a Collection 
of Irish Gaelic Folk Stories. Joseph Jacobs, Celtic Fairy 
Tales ; More Celtic Fairy Tales ; The Book of Wonder Voy- 
ages ; Alfred Tennyson, The Voyage of Maeldune. Joyce, 
Old Celtic Romances. Standish O'Grady, Finn and his 
Companions ; The Coming of Cuculain. Eleanor Hull, The 
Cuchullin Saga. Kuno Meyer, The Voyage of Bran. Stokes 
and Windisch, Irische Texte (for the scholar, giving original 
texts, with translations, English and German). 

Scotch Literature. Skene, Celtic Scotland; The Dean of 
Lismore's Book. J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West 
Highlands. 

Welsh Literature. Stephens, The Literature of the Cymry, 
JIontalembert, The Monks of the West, Vol. II, Bk. VIII. 
Ch. II, The Saints and Monks of Wales. Skene, The Four 
Ancient Books of Wales. Lady Charlotte Guest, The 
Jlabinogion. Sidney Lanier, The Boy's Mabinogion. P. H. 
Emerson, Welsh Fairy Tales. 

Modern Celtic Literature. During the last ten years 
there has been a revival of enthusiasm for Celtic subjects and 
manner. Some of the leaders in this neo-Celtic movement are, 
or were, Aubrey de Vere, James Clarence Mangan, William 
Yeats, Katharine Tynan, William Sharp, Patrick Geddes, Fiona 
Macleod, Robert Buchanan, Sebastian Evans, Ernest Rhys. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

Nearly all the books mentioned above, especially Montalem- 
bert's "Monks of the West, 1 ' and the numerous volumes of 
stories, are delightful reading. As the aim in this introductory 
work is rather to become sensitive to the peculiar Celtic element 
in our literature than to acquire a fund of information, wide 
and swift reading is recommended. It is pleasant and profita- 
ble to let every member of the class tell the whole class a 
Celtic fairy tale, selected either by himself or by the teacher, 
and point out all the special Celtic characteristics which he can 
discern in the story. Also, the students may bring to class 
passages from their reading illustrating Celtic love of color, 
Celtic feeling for nature, Celtic humor, inconsequence, love 



28 



THE SOURCES 



of mystery, poetic sentiment, passion, impetuosity. The stories 
suggested furnish ample and obvious materials for this induc- 
tive study. 

Special topics may be presented by more mature students on 
such subjects as Pagan Celtic Heroes : Cuchullin, Finn, Ossian, 
Maeldune ; Christian Celtic Heroes : St. Columba, St. Bridget, 
St. Patrick ; The Supernatural in Celtic Literature ; The Deco- 
rative Sense of the Celt in Architecture and Costume. Any of 
the subjects suggested for the whole class may also be treated 
in this way. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

Interesting lectures, to which any boy or girl would like to 
listen, can be given by the teacher. A few are here suggested, 
with authorities from which they can be prepared : Early 
Celtic Christianity. See Montalembert ; Standish O'Grady, 
" Silva Gadelica," Vol. II ; Whitley Stokes, " Tripartite Life 
of St. Patrick"; Aubrey de Vere, "Legends of St. Patrick." 
Mythologic Traits in Celtic Literature. See John Rhys, " Lec- 
tures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by 
Celtic Heathendom," "Studies in the Arthurian Legend." The 
Story of Deirdriu. See Stokes and Windisch, " Irische Texte " ; 
Sigerson, " Bards of the Gael and Gall." Hull, " The Cuchullin 
Saga." Old Welsh Poetry. See Stephens, " Literature of the 
Cymry " ; Skene, " Four Ancient Books of Wales " ; Sharp, 
"Lyra Celtica." The Celtic Bard. See Sigerson, "Bards of 
the Gael and Gall"; Rhys, "Literary History of Ireland"; 
O'Curry, "Manners and Customs." The Modern Celtic Re- 
vival, see ante. 

ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE 

The Anglo-Saxons were a people strangely different 
from the Celts. Reason and the moral sense, the 
qualities in which the Celt was weakest, were strong, 
almost controlling, factors in their nature. They 
were a serious people and often melancholy, not after 
the emotional fashion of the Irish, whose smiles and 
tears chase each other like sunshine and shadow 
over a green Irish meadow, but with a settled 



ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE 



29 



gravity which conceived of human life as a strenu- 
ous and sober thing. No other race which went to 
the making of England gives so strong an impression 
of moral nobility. 

When first we know of them, they with many 
kindred tribes inhabit the vast forests which cover 
Northern Europe, — a drear and solemn land, where 
only here and there by the seacoast a strip of country 
is reclaimed and a little village established. The sea is 
more available for their highway than the forest, and 
they are a sea-loving people, at home on the gray 
Northern ocean, with its wild storms and sunless 
waves. They are at times savage, cruel, and revenge- 
ful, with no trace of the gentleness sometimes evinced 
even in the Pagan literature of the Celts. But they 
hold women in reverence ; they are faithful even to 
death to the oath of comradeship sealed by strange 
rites by mingling their blood in their footprints ; 
they respect and practise the truth. For religion, 
they believe, so far as we can tell, not in Odin and 
Thor and V alhalla, — a faith which their cousins of 
Scandinavia developed at one period, — but in the 
great earth-mother, in the mystic ritual of sacrifice, 
and in the worship of ancestors. 

They pushed their way across the sea and came to 
England. There they won the day — still heathen 
— over the Christian Celts, throughout the better 
land. They cultivated the country ; they established 
a great civilization which lasted till the Norman con- 
quest ; and they produced a large literature, much of 
which has come down to us intact. 

Although this civilization lasted so long, it is a 
little difficult to trace development in it or to distin- 



80 



THE SOURCES 



guish its periods. The same thing is true of the 
literature. It has strength, force, depth, this litera- 
ture : it must of course always be profoundly signifi- 
cant and interesting to us. But it lacks charm, 
except when it blends with the Celtic. This blend- 
ing often happened. It probably happened in very 
ancient times in the strange little country of Iceland, 
whence we receive the most imaginative poetry that 
the Teutonic peoples have bequeathed to us ; it hap- 
pened in England also, for from Northumbria, where 
the Celtic people mingled with the Anglo-Saxon 
population, the best and most enjoyable Anglo- 
Saxon work proceeds. 

There are a certain number of stories in Anglo- 
Saxon, as there are sure to be in any primitive lit- 
erature, but not nearly so many in proportion as 
among the Celts. Nor do they show the same power 
of invention. Most of them are poetic paraphrases 
of the Bible, or legends of saints. They move 
slowly, pausing often for comment, more interested 
in their sentiment than in their narrative. There 
are moral sayings and proverbs also in Anglo-Saxon 
literature, there are scientific treatises and chroni- 
cles, there are above all a portentously large number 
of sermons. These forefathers of ours loved to 
moralize. But whatever the defects of this litera- 
ture, it is full of deep feeling for human life. At 
times it has a wonderful way of searching into the 
soul and revealing it. What we call the subjective 
or introspective habit — that is, the habit of watch- 
ing what happens in one's own mind — is developed 
to a surprising degree in Anglo-Saxon poetry. 
People talk sometimes as if this habit were a modern 



a;n t glo-saxon literature 



31 



invention, but neither Wordsworth nor Tennyson 
ever wrote a poem in which self-revelation was 
clearer than in the " Dream of the Rood," nor does 
the poetry of Shelley reveal a more individual tem- 
perament than that of the great poet Cynewulf. 

In his own way, the Anglo-Saxon had as strong a 
feeling for Nature as the Celt, so that his poetry is 
not all absorbed by human feeling. But it was not 
for him to note the bright detail, the color of heather- 
tops or ash-buds, or of the plumage of a bird. He 
cared rather for the sentiment of the scene, and this 
to his eyes was habitually a sentiment of vastness, 
mystery, and gloom. The gray tossing of the North- 
ern sea, with the faint lights that played across it, the 
wide sweep of the fen-country, over which brooded 
dank and fearful fogs, the blowing of the wind from 
the welkin, were what fascinated his fancy. 

In literature which expresses the life of the Anglo- 
Saxons before they were Christianized, by far the 
most important thing is the precious old epic of " Beo- 
wulf." Everyone ought to read this poem through. 
It is not very long, it is accessible in good translations, 
it is a very noble thing, and it is in a peculiar sense 
the beginning of our national literature. Yet, though 
it may first have been written down in England, the 
Anglo-Saxons must have brought it with them in 
their hearts when they came ; doubtless they had 
chanted portions of it at many a rude battle-feast 
across the sea. For the life the poem shows us is 
that of a period when the Teutonic peoples had not 
yet gathered themselves into nations, but were estab- 
lished in little settlements or colonies here and there 
along the sea-coast of Northern Europe, We can 



32 



THE SOURCES 



learn much from the poem of the civilization, the 
modes of life and thought of our forefathers. 

If we compare this epic with the Celtic epics, we 
note first of all that it is consecutive and coherent, 
not inconsequent and fantastic. Its action is sim- 
ple : it tells a single story, and tells it directly and 
well. Then we notice that, despite a strong and 
weird supernatural element, the story is conceived 
as real. We have passed from a mythical to an he- 
roic atmosphere. The hero, Beowulf, is an actual 
man, a moral being, as Finn and Cuchullin were 
not. He is an interesting figure, splendid of aspect 
as he comes over the sea in his foamy-necked ship, 
likest a bird, and leaps to land arrayed in shining 
battle-burnie, — lofty in character as he speaks and 
fights manfully against awful foes. Beowulf is of 
course first of all a warrior ; but a striking point 
about this first old English hero is that his best 
fighting is done not for himself but for others. 
The poem falls into two parts. In the first, Beo- 
wulf comes with his thanes over the sea to help 
the aged king Hrothgar, whose great, shining hall, 
the pride of the Danes, is ravaged night after night 
by a terrible monster, a " mighty moor-stepper," 
named Grendel. Beowulf gives the monster his 
death-wound, and follows him and his horrible mother 
to the deep sea-caves, their grim abode, where he 
slays the dam also. In the second part of the poem, 
the hero is an aged man ; he is king over his 
people, and he goes forth, knowing well that he 
shall fall, to his death-fight with a great fire-drake, 
or dragon, that is laying waste the land. He kills 
the dragon, is killed himself, and dies exulting almost 



ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE 33 



with his last breath that he has saved his people, 
and won for them the mystic golden treasures hidden 
in the creature's lair. 

The supernatural element in the poem is impres- 
sive and terrible. It is born of mist and darkness. 
Grendel and his mother " in constant night hold the 
misty moors." "Shadow-goers," the old poet calls 
them, " Spirits of Elsewhere," and his shudder comes 
to us through the ages. There is no sign of humor, 
of grace, of bright fancy, as with the joyous fairy 
beings who lure the Celtic heroes away from earth. 
These Anglo-Saxon monsters are probably an imper- 
sonation of the powers of nature, and it is a nature 
intensely feared, less for its practical dangers than 
for its malign suggestion of dark mysteries. 

In the direct descriptions, especially of the sea, 
there is a note of fear mingled with a note of exulta- 
tion. The treatment is often wild and fine. We 
see a race of bold sea-rovers, at home on the waves, 
delighting in them, yet fearful too of their fierce 
power. The very spirit of the sea breathes through 
Beowulf's tale of his swimming match, or through 
the great description of the approach to the dwelling 
of Grendel. This dark, sad nature is in tune with 
the whole poem . The mists droop low over its men- 
tal as over its physical landscape. The fundamental 
spirit is a grave recognition of an inevitable Fate, in 
the presence of which human life goes softly. Yet 
blended with this, in the illogical union always to 
be found in the English race, and source of much of 
its power, is a stern sense of personal duty. " Weird 
goeth ever as it must ! " exclaims Beowulf ; yet 
"Fate often preserves an undoomed earl, if his cour- 



34 



THE SOURCES 



age is good." The poem reveals to us many of the 
sources of the future power of the English : it shows 
us a race that can dream as well as fight, a race per- 
meated by the instinct of moral responsibility, a race 
that can compass much, but that cannot compass 
light-heartedness. 

One more point must be mentioned about "Beo- 
wulf " : it connects us with the great epic of the Ger- 
manic peoples, — the "Story of the Volsungs," which, 
in its latest and most famous form, became the " Nie- 
belungen Lied." The earliest mention of the Sieg- 
fried myth, which is the heart of this great epic, is 
found in our Anglo-Saxon poem, and the dragon- 
fight of Beowulf himself has many points of contact 
with the greater story. It is pleasant to be able to 
realize in this way our common heritage with a sister- 
nation. 

" Beowulf," as it comes to us, has been copied by 
a Christian scribe, and abounds in interpolations. 
The same thing is true of all the Anglo-Saxon litera- 
ture which seems to bear internal evidence of Pagan 
origin. We must be on our guard against ascribing 
this literature to an earlier date than the Christian 
literature in Anglo-Saxon. Nevertheless, whatever 
may be the period of final writing, there is so wide 
a difference in spirit between " Beowulf " and a 
handful of allied poems, and the rest of old English 
literature, that we must consider this literature in 
two groups. 

For Christianity came and profoundly modified 
the characteristics of the race. The moral serious- 
ness of the Anglo-Saxon found satisfaction and trans- 
figuration in the faith of Christ, as the exquisite 



ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE 35 



emotional sensitiveness of the Celt had done. Not 
that the Christianizing of Teutonic England was 
easy ; it was a long drama with many uncertainties 
in its progress. It began in 597, when Pope Greg- 
ory sent a band of Italian monks, headed by one 
Augustine, as missionaries to the savage distant 
isles. The Anglo-Saxons treated the monks with 
grave courtesy and, with relapses, tried their re- 
ligion, worshipping the White Christ or their wild 
old gods, as mood or season impelled them. But 
the powers of Christianity were reenforced from the 
island itself; for the native faith and the tradition 
of St. Columba were lingering still and, as the land 
became more peaceful, new saints ventured forth, 
of the old Celtic race, and devoted themselves with 
humblest devotion to furthering the cause of Christ. 
The Italian monks were full of administrative genius. 
They built great churches and monasteries, they 
developed ecclesiastical government, they brought 
Church music and Greek learning to the British 
Isles. The Celt had none of these things. His 
kingdom was not of this world. Simple, poor, un- 
learned, his heart was that of a child. It was 
not strange that the time soon came when the two 
forms of Christianity clashed. The Italian party 
won the day, in a full conclave held at Whitby in 
664, a conclave whose nominal subject was the date 
of the observance of Easter; and for hundreds of 
years English Christianity was governed from Rome. 
But the native strain, touched to peculiar grace and 
mystery, can long be heard in the legends of the 
English saints. 

It is very wonderful to watch the new spirit of 



36 



THE SOURCES 



love and fraternal peace striving with the old warrior 
zest of the infant nation. At first, the new ideas 
slip constantly into the old forms of expression, with 
strange effect. The conception of the Hero is shift- 
ing from the fighter who slays his thousands and seeks 
the lust of life, to the hermit who accepts insults 
with gladness, and mortifies the flesh in preparation 
for heaven ; but Guthlac the eremite is described in 
the same language as Beowulf the warrior, and his 
struggles against sin are treated in the old heroic 
manner. A martyr is strangely described as a 
"beast of battle," and a poem on the Apostles be- 
gins with the exclamation : " What ! We have heard 
of twelve, heroes under heaven, warriors gloriously 
blest." Christ is "the joy of iEthelings, the Vic- 
tory-Son of God," and the legends of saints, of Apos- 
tles, the story of the Lord of Love Himself, are 
chanted in the lofty strains of the Saga. "I trem- 
bled through all my limbs," says the Cross in another 
poem, "when the young Hero that was Almighty 
God, embraced me." 

But as we read on we become aware that a great 
transformation has been wrought, not only in the 
character but in the imagination of the race. The 
mists that hung low over the old Pagan world have 
lifted, and the imagination gazes far afield, to hori- 
zons definite indeed, but almost infinitely remote, to 
the Day of Creation on the one hand, on the other 
to the great Day of Judgment to be. The story of 
the Bible so possesses men that they can think of 
little else. Anglo-Saxon Christian poetry is still 
grave and sad, with the melancholy which seems 
a natural part of the race-inheritance ; but it has a 



ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE 



37 



note of hope unheard before, and, at times, as in 
the beautiful poem of the " Phoenix," the wintry- 
nature familiar to these men of the Northlands is 
replaced by the vision of a heavenly country, blos- 
soming and bathed in light. The hostile supernatu- 
ral forces in which our forefathers had believed, 
were retained by the new faith, changed into those 
demons who haunted the imagination all through the 
middle ages ; but Christianity added another super- 
natural of light and joy, a lore of the angels, and of 
sweet miracles of love and healing. 

We may distinguish two schools in Christian 
Anglo-Saxon poetry. The first, produced in North- 
umbria toward the end of the seventh and the 
beginning of the eighth century, gathers about the 
name of Csedmon; the second, belonging to the end 
of the eighth century, centres in the name of Cyne- 
wulf. Behind these names we may see two person- 
alities, great, though dim. Both groups of poems 
are avowedly Christian. But the Csedmonian poems 
draw their inspiration from the Old Testament. The 
story of Csedmon, told by the Venerable Bede, is too 
beautiful to omit. Connected in some menial capac- 
ity with the great Abbey of Whitby, he was in the 
habit of leaving the hall sadly when all present were 
in good old fashion called upon to sing ; for the gift 
of song had been denied to him. " But on one even- 
ing when he had care of the cattle, he fell asleep in 
the stable ; and One stood by him, and saluting him 
said, 'Csedmon, sing me something.' And he an- 
swered, ' I know not how to sing, and for this reason 
I left the feast.' Then the other said, 4 Nevertheless, 
you will have to sing to me.' ' What shall I sing ? ' 



38 



THE SOURCES 



Csedmon replied. 4 Sing,' said the other, 4 the begin- 
ning of things created.' Whereupon he immediately 
began to sing in praise of God, the world's Upbuilder, 
verses which he had not heard before." The gift re- 
mained with him all his lifetime ; and the Csedmo- 
nian poems in which we trace surely his tradition if 
not often his hand, paraphrase Genesis and Exodus 
with abrupt passion and fierce battle-ardor, chanting 
the Creation, the Fall of Man, and the dark fate of 
Lucifer, after an imaginative fashion which may well 
have given suggestions to the great epic of Milton. 
They chant, too, the savage and triumphant exploit 
of Judith, a saga-woman, a true Germanic Princess, 
as they conceive her ; they chant the Story of Daniel. 

In the second group of poems, which shelters itself 
under the name of Cynewulf, we feel the touch or 
influence of a true poet. A Celtic strain may ac- 
count for the wistful beauty of some of this work ; 
but the strong tendency to self-analysis and the pro- 
found religious experience it reveals are Saxon. The 
warrior-flame still leaps up at times through the 
even movement of the poetry, yet subjects are now 
from the New Testament rather than from the Old. 
We find also a treatment of various legends of 
the Church: the tale of the finding of the true 
cross by the Empress Helena, the legend of St. 
Guthlac, and that of the Apostle Andrew. And 
we find a wonderful personal note in a poem like 
" The Dream of the Rood," which tells how the 
writer, apparently a wild, sinful, Pagan man, was 
converted to Christ by the midnight vision of a 
great Cross, jewelled, streaming with blood, upsoar- 
ing to the sky. If Cynewulf wrote this poem, which 



ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE 



39 



is not certain, he was the first great poet of the 
spiritual life in England. That he was of a deeply 
religious nature, we know from his signed poems ; 
for four poems, — "Christ," "Juliana," "Elene," and 
the " Fates of the Apostles," besides some little lyrical 
" Riddles," he signed in a curious way, by inserting 
the letters of his name here and there through the 
verse. Feeling, in all the work of this school, the 
union of intense love of nature with high imagi- 
nation and religious passion, we are well assured 
that we are indeed on the track which leads to 
Wordsworth and Shelley, to Tennyson's " In Memo- 
riam," and to Browning's " Saul." 

The great period of Anglo-Saxon poetry was then 
the seventh and eighth centuries. All this poetry 
comes down to us in the West Saxon dialect. In 
form it was based on the principle of alliteration. 
That is, instead of rhyming the ends of lines, as we 
do, the mysterious instinct for harmony of sound was 
satisfied by words in the body of the verse beginning 
with the same sound : two in the first half of the line, 
one in the second. There was no fixed number of 
syllables, but each line had normally four beats, or 
accents. Modern English poetry retains alliteration 
for ornament, as any one can see by opening a page 
of Swinburne, but discards it as an essential to struc- 
ture. It is possible, however, though not easy, to 
train the ear to understand how pleasurably the old 
use of it affected our forefathers. Anglo-Saxon 
poetry has more metaphors than similes, and it is 
characterized by a habit of repetition or paraphrase 
like the parallelism of ancient Hebrew poetry. 

Almost all this poetry came, probably, from North- 



40 



THE SOURCES 



umberland. In the ninth century, after the Danish 
invasion had laid the Northern kingdom waste, we 
meet with a development of Anglo-Saxon prose in the 
southern kingdom of Wessex, under the fostering 
care of King Alfred. This prose, however, calls for 
brief comment only, unless one is studying linguistics. 
Like all primitive prose, it lacks the sense of art, and 
it is very dry and dull. The original part consists 
of a large number of sermons and homilies; but 
more interesting than these are a number of transla- 
tions from historical, scientific, or religious books in 
Latin, made or commanded by the pious and learned 
king. The most important are a translation of the 
great work on Church discipline by Pope Gregory, 
called "Pastoral Care," an adaptation of a volume 
of travel and geography by the Spaniard Orosius, 
and an expansion of the work " On the Consolations 
of Philosophy," by the Latin Boethius. We have, 
also, and it is the most interesting monument of 
Anglo-Saxon prose, the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, a 
history carried on by the monks, which is our chief 
source of information till a period after the Nor- 
man conquest. This is invaluable for the study 
of old English history ; but it has no literary 
quality. 

Taking it as a whole, one cannot fail to pause in 
respect before Anglo-Saxon literature. It is the 
expression of a strong and noble race. Yet with all 
its solemn force, it leaves one unsatisfied. Had this 
race retained possession of England, neither the 
" Canterbury Tales " nor the " Faerie Queen " nor 
" King Henry Fifth " could have been produced on 
English soil. 



ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE 41 



REFERENCE BOOKS 

1. Anglo-Saxon Literature. 

Ten Brink, English Literature to Wyclif. A valuable and 
trustworthy reference book. Dry reading. 

Stopford Brooke, History of Early English Literature: 
The best popular study of Anglo-Saxon poetry. English 
Literature from the Beginning to the Norman Conquest. 
A condensation of the earlier book, with additional chap- 
ters on Anglo-Saxon prose. 

Morley, English Writers, Vol. I, II. 

Jusserand, Literary History of the English People. Bk. I, 
Chs. II-IV. A remarkable combination of scholarship 
and charm. 

Powell and Vigfusson, Corpus Poeticum Boreale. A de- 
lightful collection of old Icelandic poetry, which is the 
best representative extant of the poetry of the Germanic 
peoples. 

2. Anglo-Saxon Civilization. 

Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons. A stand- 
ard work, though no longer modern. 

J. R. Green, The Making of England; Short History of 
the English People, Ch. I. 

Gummere, Germanic Origins. 

Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, Vol. I. 

Freeman, The Norman Conquest, Vol. I. 

Montalembert, The Monks of the West. This fascinat- 
ing book tells with utmost vividness the story of the 
Christianizing of England. 

Bright, Early English Church History. Clarendon Press, 
1878. 

The Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History. Translated 
by Giles. Bohn's Library. After all, more can be learned 
about our Anglo-Saxon fathers from Bede than from any 
modern author, and in a more interesting way. 

Powell and Vigfusson, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, Vol. 
II, Excursus I : The Beliefs and Worships of the Ancient 
Norsemen. This is a fine study of the Pagan religion of 
our fathers before they became Christianized. 

Social England, edited by H. D. Traill (Cassell, 1893), 
Ch. I. 



42 



THE SOURCES 



Thomas Wright. The Celt, the Roman, and the Teuton, 

Chs. XV, XVI. 
Grant Allen, Early Britain ; Anglo-Saxon Britain. S. P. 

C. K., 18. 

3. A classified enumeration of Anglo-Saxon literature will be 
found in Stopford Brooke. The standard text of Anglo-Saxon 
poetry is in Grein's " Bibliothek der Angelsachsischen Poesie," 
edited by Wulker. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

Rapid reading in translations is very feasible and interesting. 
The class should at least read selections from the " Beowulf." 
Translations by Kemble, Garnett, Hall. 

1. Outline for Study of the "Beowulf." 

Theories of date, origin, authorship. (These can of course 

be skipped with young students.) 
The scenery and the feeling for nature in the poem. 
The social life of our ancestors as shown in it. 
The ideal of the hero it conveys. 
The poetic art and imagination of the poem. 
The ethical ideal and attitude. 

Comparison of spirit and method with the epics of the 
classic world, Homer and Virgil. (This is possible and 
suggestive with a class that is reading Greek or Latin in 
preparation for college.) 

2. Suggestions for Other Work. 

With fairly advanced classes, special reading might well be 
assigned to certain students, and short reports made in- 
formally on poems like the "Judith," the "Elene," the 
" Dream of the Rood," or the " Riddles " of Cynewulf. 
Translations of Cynewulf 's "Christ" by Gollancz ; of 
"Judith" by Cook and Garnett. See Gurteen's "Epic 
of the Fall of Man " for comparative study of Csedmon 
and Milton. 

The students, even the youngest, should be encouraged 
to give their impressions of the general characteristics of 
Anglo-Saxon genius. What sort of people were our an- 
cestors V What kinds of poetry did they like best? What 
did they think of the sea ? What were they afraid of ? 



ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE 



43 



What did they admire? Were they a happy people? 
Did they make good jokes ? Did they have strong feel- 
ings, and of what kind? What were their chief pleas- 
ures? etc. All the answers should be illustrated by the 
students from then- reading ; one cannot begin real in- 
ductive work too soon. 

Talks from the Teacher. 

An ordinary class can give very little time to Anglo-Saxon 
literature, and that time would better be spent on reading 
one or two texts. But broader illustrative talks from the 
teacher might increase very much the interest and value 
of the work. A few possible and desirable subjects for 
such talks are suggested here. The references already 
given suggest plenty of material from which the talks 
could be prepared. 
The Way our Ancestors Lived. 

See references on Anglo-Saxon civilization. Also Powell 
and Yigfusson. 
The Religion of our Ancestors while Heathen. 

See besides Stopford Brooke, etc., Powell and Vigfusson, 
excursus on The Beliefs and Worship of the Ancient 
Norsemen. Also Gummere, Germanic Origins. 
Old Germanic Poetry Parallel to that of the Anglo-Saxons. 
See, in particular, the " Story of the Volsungs," Camelot 
edition, translated by Morris and Magnusson. Also 
Morris's magnificent poem " Sigurd the Volsung." 
Also, in Powell and Vigfusson, Book V, The Latest 
Epics. This lecture should introduce the students to 
the great epic of the Northern peoples, which is a most 
precious part of our heritage. 
The Christianizing of England. 

Montalembert, Bright, and The Venerable Bede will give 
ample material for this interesting story, which should 
be presented mainly by anecdote. See also Aubrey de 
Vere, " Legends of the Saxon Saints." 
The Treatment of Nature and of the Sea in Anglo-Saxon 
Poetry. Beowulf, and the poems of Cynewulf. Stopford 
Brooke treats the subject fully and lovingly. It is rich 
in interest. 
The Poetic Art of the Anglo-Saxons. 

See appendix to Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader. 



44 



THE SOURCES 



NORMAN LITERATURE 

While the Celt dreamed in fairy-land and the 
Anglo-Saxon brooded on Fate, the Norman rode 
forth with vigor, audacity, and good cheer, to the 
conquest of the world. He was a practical person. 
He knew how to build magnificent churches and 
abbeys and castles which are still the wonder of 
men ; he knew how to govern. He was very reli- 
gious too, — when we first know him he was Chris- 
tianized, — but he took his religion simply, regarding 
fighting as his chief duty, if he could persuade him- 
self, as he always did, that he fought on God's side. 
So he became the master of England, and ruled it, 
well for the most part, till from this mingling of 
races the English race was gradually formed. 

There is one splendid poem in which we can read 
the character of the Normans when they came to the 
British Isles. This is the " Song of Roland." It binds 
us to the French as " Beowulf," with its relation to the 
" Niebelungen Lied," binds us to the Germans ; for it 
is the chief glory of old French literature. Yet we 
may claim it too ; for the Normans rode to the battle 
of Hastings with an early version of its stirring 
strains upon their lips, the poem very likely took 
final shape in England after the conquest, and the 
best manuscript of it was certainly written by an 
Anglo-Norman and is preserved at Oxford. It is 
fine to think that there was a time when all Europe 
shared its great inspirations : perhaps that time will 
some day come again. It is fine, also, to an English- 
speaking man, to think of England as a meeting- 
place of races, and this she emphatically was. 



NORMAN LITERATURE 



45 



The " Song of Roland " is a poem not of brooding 
thought nor of lovely fancy, but solely of noble 
deed. It has a stern tale to tell : with inexorable 
swiftness it tells it. The Celt may pause in his 
fiercest battle ardor to bid us note how the shields 
of the warriors fighting by firelight gleam like the 
white wings of birds ; the Anglo-Saxon will pause 
to point a moral. The Norman story never pauses. 
It is a story of failure, but of failure more glorious 
than victory. It tells how the mighty king Charle- 
magne, the Christian monarch, with his long white 
beard, has been fighting the Paynim hosts of Spain ; 
how, deceived by fair promises, he withdraws his 
host homeward, through the defiles of the Pyrenees, 
leaving the rear to be guarded by the heroes Roland 
and Oliver with a small company ; how, betrayed by 
a jealous French noble, this rear-guard is cut off and 
encompassed by numberless foes ; how Roland and 
Oliver and the rest fight magnificently, desperately, 
hopelessly ; and how, when all his friends are slain, 
and he has himself received his death-wound, the 
dying Roland winds at last that mighty horn whereof 
the echoes, which were to sound through all history, 
first recall, not to assistance but to vengeance, the 
army of Charlemagne. 

This poem is obviously much later than "Beowulf " 
or the epic cycles of the Celt. The spirit of the 
Crusades is in it, and the hosts of Christian Europe 
are opposed to the hated Paynim hordes. It shows 
us a feudal society, governed by new laws of honor 
and courtesy suggesting the chivalry to be ; a race 
that can ride forth gayly with songs upon its lips 
to fight a losing battle. The hero no longer fights 



46 



THE SOURCES 



alone, or for such causes as his fancy may direct ; he 
is one of a fellowship, and loyalty to king, to coun- 
try, to comrades, and to God, sustains life and glori- 
fies death. The conscious belief that a Paradise 
awaits the knights of God nerves the arm and cheers 
the heart of every French warrior. The archbishop 
Turpin, himself a warrior-priest, blesses the French 
hosts as they go forth to a combat known by them 
all to be against fatal odds. Here is his speech to 
them : — 

" ' Lords, we are here for our monarch's sake ; 
Hold we for him, though our death should come ; 
Fight for the succor of Christendom. 
The battle approaches, — ye know it well, — 
For ye see the ranks of the infidel. 
Cry Mea Culpa, and lowly kneel ; 
I will assoil you, your souls to heal. 
In death ye are holy martyrs crowned/ 
The Franks alighted and knelt on ground : 
In God's high name the host he blessed, 
And for penance gave them, — to fight their best." 1 

All the temper of the Norman is there ; militant, 
devout, stern, yet touched with a certain lightness in 
the apprehension of life. When the archbishop him- 
self is in his death-agony, his last prayer is for the 
souls of his comrades, his last thought for the Em- 
peror whom we shall never see again. He prays : — 

"That G-od in mercy your souls may give 
On the flowers of Paradise to live ; 
Mine own death comes, with anguish sore, 
That I see mine emperor never more." 

1 The Song of Roland : translated by Colonel J. O'Hagan. 



NORMAN LITERATURE 



47 



Reading the " Song of Roland," we can well un- 
derstand how the Norman vanquished the Saxon, as 
the Saxon before him had vanquished the yet more 
ineffective Celt. 

Yet the vanquished in the end were victors. The 
Normans were, it is true, a great race ; England 
would never have been what she is without them. 
But when all is said, the Anglo-Saxon is the domi- 
nant type of the composite English people. The 
practical genius of the Norman lends them energy 
indeed ; something of his gayety makes them less 
ponderous, more elastic, than their German cousins. 
The poetic sensitiveness of the Celt, on the other 
hand, his power to dream, his ready sentiment, impart 
at times to English character and English poetry a 
delicate mystic charm far from the clear sparkle which 
characterizes the pure Latin races. But the earnest- 
ness of the Anglo-Saxons and their profound sense 
of moral responsibility are the controlling English 
traits. 

The " Song of Roland " by no means illustrates all 
the factors contributed by the Norman to the Eng- 
lish nation ; we shall find others in the copious 
literature of the Anglo-Norman period, to which we 
shall soon turn. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Freeman, Norman Conquest, Vol. I, Ch. IV ; Vol. V, Ch. 
XXV. See also articles on Normandy and The Normans in 
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Roemer, The Norman in Gaul. 
Sarah Orne Jewett, The Story of the Normans. Matthew 
Arnold, Celtic Literature. O'Hagan, translation of the " Song 
of Roland " (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.), has excellent Introduc- 



48 



THE SOURCES 



tion on the epic. Fine sketches of Norman character in appo- 
sition to the Saxon are found in Kingsley's " Hereward the 
Wake." 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

O'Hagan's spirited translation of the "Song of Roland" 
should be read rapidly through, and discussed by the class. 
Contrasts between this poem and " Beowulf," in respect to the 
ideal of heroism, the feeling for nature, the poetic method, etc., 
should be pointed out. Questions based on the text, and other 
critical reading, may review Norman characteristics ; but this is 
a point where a clear and simple impression is better than a 
complex one, and further understanding of the French element 
in our literature may be put off till the Anglo-Norman period 
is familiar. 

LITERATURE IN LATIN 

Celt, Saxon, and Norman are, then, the ancestors 
of the English race, and in studying them we have 
studied the heredity of the nation and of its litera- 
ture. But even before the literature grew up and 
learned to speak in its own tongue, there was one 
other influence which did not enter into its organic 
being, but did, nevertheless, affect it very much. 
This was the Latin of the Church. It was a deca- 
dent tongue, in which little that was vital was pro- 
duced, but it formed a medium through which many 
of the ideals of the ancient world, as well as the 
ideals of Christianity, were applied to the young and 
primitive peoples. Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Normans, 
all, when they became civilized and were fired with 
literary ambition, learned Latin and wrote in Latin. 
This habit continued through the middle ages ; 
mediaeval Latin literature is vast in bulk, and was, 
of course, held in common by the whole of Europe. 
Even in the Christian centuries just preceding the 



LITERATURE IN LATIN 



49 



Norman conquest an enormous amount of literature 
in Latin was written. It came almost entirely, 
as was natural, from the Church, from monks and 
priests ; and it was almost wholly of a religious 
character. It consisted of sermons, homilies, moral 
treatises, and lives of saints. It was a literature of 
learning and of edification ; for the Church had by 
this time a great tradition of her own, proceeding 
partly from Rome and partly from the East. The 
effect of this imposition of decadent language and 
modes of thought upon immature races was not 
wholly happy. Much of this literature is dreary in 
the extreme. The thought-life of Europe could not 
be understood without discussing it, but in a book 
which is to emphasize art-values we can pass it over 
lightly. Now and then, however, a book of enduring 
importance and beauty was produced in Latin, as was 
natural when we remember how much of the idealism 
of these centuries was shut away in monasteries, and 
sought to express itself through the Church and her 
accredited mediums. Of such books, in the period 
of which we are treating, one is highly significant 
if we would understand the English race. This is 
Bede's " Ecclesiastical History," and a delightful 
book it is, and a noble monument of English letters 
although not written in English. Composed in the 
eighth century, it seems strangely modern in its 
sweet reasonableness and real critical and historic 
sense ; it begins the long and honorable list of the 
products of the Christian scholarship of England. 
It deals, despite its title, not only with Church mat- 
ters, but with all English life. Nowhere can the 
transformation of the savage Pagan race we see in 



50 



THE SOURCES 



" Beowulf " to a peaceful Christian nation be so pleas- 
antly traced as through Bede's charming stories of 
old kings and saints, and the revelation of his own 
gentle spirit. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Bede's Ecclesiastical History, tr. in Bonn's Antiquarian 
Library: G. F. Browne, The Venerable Bede. 



PAET II 

THE MIDDLE AGES 



CHAPTER I 



GENERAL CONDITIONS 

THE middle ages lasted, broadly speaking, from 
the beginning of the Christian era through the 
fifteenth century. This long period falls into two 
clearly marked divisions. Rather more than the first 
thousand years are usually known as the Dark Ages. 
During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a great 
change took place ; and it is the subsequent period, 
which in England may be said to begin with the 
Norman Conquest, that we are now to study. 

As people grow older, the great words that de- 
scribe different epochs or civilizations become so 
charged with meaning that they cannot be heard 
without excitement. We say "antiquity," and at 
once our soul is living in a special world, full 
of emotions, interests, and sights that are all its 
own. We say "the Renaissance"; presto! we have 
travelled into another planet. Great epochs have 
come, have passed like shadows, in human history; 
but they are not dead. Not only have they be- 
queathed to us the heritage, inward and outward, 
that makes us what we are ; they all live forever in 
the Imagination, where, as an English poet has told 
us, all things exist. 

I. A Period of Expansion 

But we must have lived eagerly and long in the 
wider life of the race as well as in our own tiny 

53 



54 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



affairs before such words yield up their full content. 
A little book like this can introduce the great periods 
only by a few hints. We must think of the later 
middle ages as differing from the Dark Ages which 
had immediately preceded them by a passion for ex- 
periment, by a new fulness of life. Conditions had 
long been stationary in Europe. Unswerving law 
prevailed. The stiffness of Byzantine painting, the 
solemn majesty of Romanesque architecture, had 
expressed, at least in Northern Europe, the spirit of 
the time. Two influences in particular, cooperating 
with less tangible causes, led the middle ages into a 
larger air: the Crusades, and the establishment of 
Universities. 

The The Crusades began at the very end of the eleventh 

Crusades. cen t ur y^ anc [ l as ted through the thirteenth. They 
were undertaken from a passionate religious desire 
to rescue the tomb of the Saviour from paynim hands. 
But they accomplished something very different from 
their conscious aim ; for they set Europe in motion. 
They drew all the Christian nations together, in 
fellowship and common knowledge, and brought 
them in contact with the marvels of the East, with 
Oriental luxury, learning, romance. 
Mediaeval Of course all this wonderfully stimulated men's 
Ses Versi " imaginations. At the same time, the great mediae- 
val universities were giving a new impetus to men's 
minds. Until the eleventh century, education and 
scholarship had been wholly in the hands of monks. 
The monasteries had rendered a noble service, too ; 
but now the secularizing of education came, and 
assuredly widened human thought. During the 
twelfth century, the Universities of Bologna, Paris, 



GENERAL CONDITIONS 



55 



Oxford, sprang into power. The rediscovery a little 
later, through contact with the East, of certain works 
by the philosopher Aristotle hitherto unknown, pro- 
duced a real intellectual revolution, and stimulated 
that scholastic philosophy which was an immense 
power in its day in the world of mind. Eagerly the 
hosts of scholars who thronged these universities dis- 
cussed and debated everything within their horizon ; 
and a democratic and critical spirit reigned among 
them, and spread abroad through all classes of 
people. 

The universities were, however, still closely con- The 
nected with the Church. They concerned themselves jjirit? val 
with logic, grammar, rhetoric, jurisprudence, but j^^and 
with theology first and last. We must never forget freedom, 
that the whole life of the middle ages was profoundly 
Christian and Catholic, and that we rightly call them 
the ages of faith. Yet within the limits of an estab- 
lished and unquestioned faith, there was plenty of 
room for the imagination and minds of men to move 
about. During the mediaeval centuries there was 
movement in both life and art: there was noble and 
stirring development; but there was little change of 
direction. The middle ages ended when a principle of 
yet more untrammelled freedom came in with a rush: 
when a spirit of general challenge and scepticism, a 
longing for literally universal knowledge, invaded 
the world. Then the old order of religion, society, 
literature, broke up completely in a confusion from 
which we have hardly yet emerged. Compared with 
what went before, the middle ages were centuries of 
freedom; compared with what came after, they look 
to us like centuries of law. 



56 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



II. Literary Conditions 



English 
not yet 
mature. 



European 
literature 
held in 
common. 



The middle ages were most splendid when they 
were young, and the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
were their time of greatest glory. But at this time, 
for special reasons, English literature did not yet exist. 
The English nation was not yet born. For more 
than two centuries after the Norman Conquest, Nor- 
mans and Saxons struggled in England for mastery 
in speech, not realizing that each was to find victory 
and defeat at once by union in one race, greater than 
either. Meanwhile, three languages were spoken on 
English soil. The court and the gentry talked 
French; the monks and priests liked their inter- 
course in Latin; and the unlettered throngs used still 
the despised Saxon. It was not till the fourteenth 
century that the English nation was ready for self- 
expression. We cannot pass at once to this century, 
however, for during all this time the growing nation 
shared the life of Europe and was formed by it. 

In a broad sense, we may claim all that Northern 
Europe produced during this period of intense vital- 
ity as part of our English heritage. England and 
France were practically one country; and, indeed, no 
national boundaries were as yet very clear. Medi- 
seval Europe almost realized Matthew Arnold's ideal : 
it was "for intellectual and spiritual purposes one 
great confederation, bound to a joint action and 
working to a common result." Poems and stories, 
starting no one quite knew where, wandered from 
land to land, chanted by minstrels in the castle court, 
transcribed by clerks in the monasteries, passing 
from language to language, gaining detail and chang- 



GENERAL CONDITIONS 



57 



ing form as they went, till to-day it is often impossi- 
ble to tell where they came from or what the original 
form might have been. 

A vast amount of literature was produced during Literature 
the middle ages in this impersonal, anonymous fash- aryimpor- 
ion. But there is one thing that we must realize tance " 
before we begin to discuss it ; that is, that the mid- 
dle ages could express themselves in many other 
ways better than through books. Nowadays books 
have become the most natural and universal means 
of sharing ideas. It was not so before the invention 
of printing. If a man wanted to share an idea, or 
a story, or an emotion, he was not likely to write it 
out laboriously in a manuscript which only a few 
people would ever see, — and a great many could 
not read even if they had the chance: he would 
paint it, or carve it, or build it. Men learned 
almost everything then from the graphic arts. The 
visible world was alive for them with expressions 
of beauty, or solemnity, or fun. If great abstract 
ideas, even, came into their minds, they would trans- 
late them, as Giotto did at Padua, into a painted 
series of symbolic figures. If they wanted to tell a 
story from the Bible, or the life of their patron saint, 
it was easy to carve reliefs above the church door. 
If they wanted to explain a genealogy, they could 
design a Tree of Jesse, and put it in a stained glass 
window. If they had a great emotion, they lifted 
the solid stone heavenward, pierced it with light, 
placed a sanctuary at its heart, and lo! a cathedral! 



58 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



III. Medieval Life Pictured 

We can only understand a period of this sort, 
which lived in sights, if we can contrive to see it. 
And we can see the middle ages if we will. We 
have two gifts which unseal our eyes, each useless 
without the other, — scholarship and imagination. 
Scholarship gives us the requisite knowledge, imagi- 
nation turns it into sight. Even through books, 
which are all that most of us here in America have 
access to, we can learn a great deal, if we will take 
pains, about the aspect of those wonderful times. 1 
Endless records we can find of processions, of pag- 
eants, of gay tournaments, of ceremonies within and 
without the churches. Even the common daily life 
of mediaeval people was one great changing, moving 
picture. Everything they touched became pictu- 
resque, expressive, symbolic. The literature of the 
Visualiz- time constantly, as the phrase is, visualizes. We can 
instinct. learn from it all about the clothes of people, their 
looks, the country they lived in, the sort of landscape 
they liked. The works of Chaucer alone, for instance, 
are a perfect picture-gallery. Watch the procession 
of pilgrims in the Prologue to the " Canterbury Tales" 
if you would know how a motley, ordinary set of 
people in the fourteenth century really looked; study 
the dainty descriptions of allegorical persons in the 
" Romance of the Rose " if you want to find the medi- 
aeval ideal of beauty. 

1 Read, for instance, Froissart's account of the entrance of Queen 
Isabel into Paris, "Chronicles of Froissart," Vol. II, p. 383, Globe 
edition. 



GENERAL CONDITIONS 



59 



From such descriptions and from mediaeval art we ideal of 
can learn just what personal types were most attractive beauty - 
to the middle ages. They had an entirely different 
ideal of beauty from that of the Greeks. They cared 
for masculine beauty, indeed, more than we do, and 
their men dressed almost as gayly as the women; but 
they placed an emphasis upon feminine loveliness 
which the world before the days of chivalry had 
never dreamed of. They liked blondes : a slender 
neck, long fingers, delicately arched eyebrows, eyes 
d fleur de tete, as the French say; full foreheads, 
flowing yellow hair garland-crowned, a rippling nose, 
wide, thin, mysteriously smiling lips, — this was 
what seemed the highest beauty to mediaeval eyes, 
this was probably the aspect of Guinevere as imagined 
by the age that created her. 

As for costume, it was delightfully varied and Costume 
interesting in the middle ages. One can look at a 
modern crowd and learn very little about the people 
from their clothes ; but one would know all sorts 
of things about the men and women in a mediaeval 
crowd. One could tell just what a man did, 
for instance, from his dress ; for while costume 
within the limits of a class was more uniform than 
with us, it differed wholly from class to class. It 
must have been a pleasant sight, that mediaeval 
throng, with the bright colors, the graceful cut of 
the garments, the clearly marked types of knights, 
and squires, and merchants, and lawyers, and friars. 
Life was much more interesting to the eyes then 
than now. 

It is harder to find out about mediaeval buildings Architec- 
than about mediaeval people from the books that 



60 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



have come down to us. But fortunately many of 
the buildings themselves are left, so that we know a 
great deal about them. Anybody who likes can 
study in beautiful photographs what kind of castles, 
and houses, and churches the middle ages loved to 
build. Like everything in the middle ages, the archi- 
tecture of the times was picturesque, and inter- 
esting, and different from anything else before or 
since. It was, of course, what is technically called 
Gothic, and the first impression it presents is one of 
massive force contrasting with extreme delicacy, of 
mysterious use of shadow, of vast wealth in decora- 
tive detail. The very stones of a great Gothic build- 
ing appear to live. 1 
Landscape. Mediaeval landscape we can easily, again, repro- 
duce for ourselves. We know what men loved; we 
know what they habitually saw about them. The 
country was still in large tracts wild and savage, 
overgrown with vast forests like those through 
which the knights in mediaeval romance perpetually 
wander. Even so late as the time of Elizabeth, we 
know that one-third of England was unreclaimed 
waste land. Here and there the grim castle of a feu- 
dal lord, its thick walls and frowning turrets wit- 
nessing to the military character of the age, would 
break the monotony but hardly relieve the terror of 
the woods. Or, again, the sweet sound of unseen 

1 See, for a summary of Gothic characteristics, Ruskin's " Stones 
of Venice," Vol. II, Ch. I : On the Nature of Gothic. (Reprinted 
by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press.) "To my mind, and I 
believe to some others, this chapter . . . will in future days be 
considered one of the very few necessary and inevitable utterances 
of the century." — Morris's preface. 



GENERAL CONDITIONS 



61 



bells would draw the traveller to some spot where 
" a little lowly hermitage " or a stately abbey spoke 
of the mighty power of the Church. Of course, 
wide regions even apart from the towns were by this 
time subdued to human use and smiling fertility; 
yet the general character of scenery during the mid- 
dle ages must have been wild and fierce. Men are 
governed by desire for contrast. We in our peaceful 
days crave precipice and savage height and raging 
torrent, and take our holiday pleasure in the wildest 
regions we can discover. It is, then, no wonder that 
people in the middle ages loved and sought in land- 
scape all which was gently ordered, even, and serene. 
The mediaeval idea of beauty is a garden-close. 
Flowering trees bend above its symmetrical walks, 
roses bloom there forever, and clear fountains softly 
splashing join in the melody of birds. In this gar- 
den pace fair damsels, a faint, perpetual smile in 
their gray eyes. Young squires and pretty pages 
move in attendance, and all take their joy together 
in the fresh sweet morning air of an undying May. 
Rocks and mountains cause abhorrent shudder to the 
mediaeval mind. Dante's spirits in purgatory climb 
for their penance a lofty height; but because they 
are blessed, though once sinful, the mountain is laid 
out for them in neat terraces, and when they reach 
the top they will find that the peak has been 
smoothed away, and a delightful level garden 
planted for their refreshment. The wild primeval 
sense of fellowship with the stormy sea, which 
marked in so striking a way the rude literature of 
our Saxon forefathers, has also vanished. Nature 
is loved in the middle ages, but loved not for her 



62 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



spiritual power, but for her fertility and peace. The 
treatment of landscape in mediaeval art and literature 
is conventional and formal; it has no range of obser- 
vation nor depth of insight, though it almost always 
possesses a charm of its own. 

IV. Governing Forces 

Society, during the middle ages, was shaped by two 
great forces, — feudalism and Catholicism. As we 
watch the mediaeval world, two figures strike with 
increasing vividness upon our vision, and become 

The more and more evident as the centres of the scene. 

and the They are the figures of the Knight and the Monk. 

order! They represent these two powers: the nobility and 
the Church. Each influences the other, yet they 
ever remain apart. Nearly all the literature of the 
middle ages, romantic or religious, proceeds from 
them or is written for them. Far in the back- 
ground, indeed, we may discern another figure, 
that of the Laborer. He too has his word to say, 
and by and by we must listen to it; but for the 
present we will disregard him, as his own age dis- 
regarded him, and fix our sight on the literature 
related to those two more brilliant figures in whom 
the dominant forces of the age, chivalry and mysti- 
cism, found supreme expression. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

It is of great importance that the student should be able to 
see in his imagination what the middle ages looked like, and to 
get a little idea of mediaeval life. Readings from the following 
books will help to this end : — 

General Mediaeval Life. Rashdall, The Universities of 
Europe in the Middle Ages, esp, Ch. XIV : Student Life in the 



GENERAL CONDITIONS 



G3 



Middle Ages. Green, History of the English People, large 
illustrated edition. Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life in the 
Middle Ages. T. Wright, Domestic Manners and Sentiments 
in England during the Middle Ages. Traill, Social England, 
Vol. H. 

Costume. F. W. Fairholt, Costume in England. Planche, 
Cyclopaedia of Costume. Georgiana Hill, A History of Eng- 
lish Dress, Vol. I. 

Landscape. Ruskin, Modern Painters, Vol. III. F. T. 
Palgrave, Landscape in Poetry from Homer to Tennyson. 

Architecture. Corroyer, Gothic Architecture. C. E. 
Norton, Cathedrals and Cathedral Builders ; Church building 
in the Middle Ages. Ruskin, On the Nature of Gothic (re- 
print from The Stones of Venice : George Allen) ; The Seven 
Lamps of Architecture ; Social England, Vol. II. Ch. V. 

Popular novels are helpful to read : e.g., Scott's " Ivanhoe, " 
Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris," Morris's "Dream of 
John Ball ; " Conan Doyle's " The White Company." Num- 
berless admirable photographs are now readily accessible, and 
should when possible be freely used by the teacher. 

Books of the period itself are better than critical authorities ; 
even young students can read with pleasure, if guided, in the 
works of Froissart and Chaucer. These are a storehouse of 
pictures and so are all the mediaeval romances, such as can be 
found in the publications of the Early English Text Society, 
in Weber's " Metrical Romances," and elsewhere ; so is Lang- 
land's " Piers Plowman," though teacher can handle this more 
easily than scholar. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

Two or three hours can be pleasantly spent in presenting 
examples of landscape, costume, buildings, on the lines given 
in the text ; and at the end of the time a clear though rude 
picture of the times can be left in the student's mind. Special 
reports should be given, on material assigned with more or less 
detail according to the maturity of the class. Older students 
can be referred simply to a book, younger to especial passages. 
One can be asked to describe a knight, another a nun, another 
a mediaeval forest, etc. ; or, the different figures in Chaucer's 
Prologue, in the "Romaunt of the Rose," or in some romance, 
can be assigned to different members of the class. Popular 
novels can if desired be treated in the same way, and so can 
photographs. 



64 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

The teacher may expand lectures on these same lines from a 
wider range of reading. Some special lecture subjects which would 
help a class to see the middle ages, are : " A day in a mediaeval 
Market-place," " The life of a mediaeval lady," " The mediaeval 
Cathedral and what went on in it." 



CHAPTER II 



THE CHIEF PHASES OF MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 

I. Chivalry and Catholicism: their literary 

RESULTS 

AROUND the knight gathers all the great litera- 
ture of the middle ages inspired by the spirit of 
chivalry: love-songs, romances in verse or prose, a 
wealth of fantastic tales. It is a literature de- 
lightful as it is abundant. From the figure of 
the monk, all the religious literature of the mid- 
dle ages seems to proceed, and this, too, is vast in 
bulk. Much of it preaches or discusses theology, — 
and mediaeval theology is a great monument of 
human thought ; but much of it is born of feeling 
and fancy, and the legends of the saints are as rich 
a storehouse of imaginative treasure as the romances 
of chivalry. 

Romance and allegory are the distinctive forms Literary 
in which mediaeval imagination finds freest play, ronmnce 
and they are the outcome of this double spirit Juegory 
of chivalry and Catholicism. Often the twofold 
inspiration appears in the same poem, and a compel- 
ling charm springs from the union. Often, however, 
the two are at odds. A zest for life in its freedom, 
a passion pushed at times beyond all restraining 
bounds, pervades the literature of chivalry ; the lit- 
erature of the Church, austere and ascetic, centres 
in the cold theme of renunciation. 

65 



66 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



The Yet, even when most widely separate, all phases 

temper! °f mediseval literature witness fundamentally to a 
common temper. It is a temper of wondering 
expectation, of quick sensitiveness to marvel, natural 
or spiritual. This was the temper with which the 
knight rode forth into the greenwood, eager for 
adventure, whether with mysterious fair lady or 
loathsome dragon ; this the temper with which the 
nun or hermit, in lowly cell, scourged the flesh till 
the heavens opened and revealed vision of Madonna 
or angels to the longing, watchful eyes. This temper 
we technically call Romantic, and, because of its prev- 
alence, the middle ages are habitually known as the 
ages of romance. 

The mind of the child helps us to understand the 
mind of the middle ages. A child is not scientific. 
He does not care to be accurate, he does not care to 
analyze. His reasoning powers are undeveloped, 
and feeling and imagination lead him. He is likely 
to be betrayed into extravagance and unreason, yet 
at times he sees more, perhaps, and more truly, than 
grown-up people do. It was just so with the middle 
ages. Men's souls were filled with wonder then ; 
wonder at earth, at heaven, and at hell. "In 
wonder begins the soul of man," says a wise critic, 
" in wonder it ends ; and investigation fills up the 
interspace." 

All the conditions of the time increased this sense 
of mystery which brooded over the world. The rude 
and uncertain social state was full of surprises. The 
Crusades brought men close to the strange, fantastic 
civilizations of the East. Men's dim knowledge of 
the classic past enhanced the power which it exer- 



PHASES OF MEDIEVAL LITERATURE 67 



cised over their imaginations, and turned the great 
poets of antiquity into clerks and magicians in their 
minds. Finally, we must not forget that at every 
turn they were met by the majestic presence of the 
visible Church, with its ceaseless witness to mys- 
teries of a world unseen : mysteries of light and 
darkness, of salvation and of loss. It is no wonder 
if, over all the literature of the middle ages, what- 
ever its specific character, the breath of the Spirit 
of Romance has passed. 

Of very little in this great mediaeval literature can 
we say that it was actually produced in England. 
But it was all known there. It helped determine 
the tone, shape the manners, and establish the 
standards, of the growing nation. And, before the 
middle ages were over, much of it made its way 
into English translations, and sometimes found its 
noblest expression in them. 

II. Literature of Chivalry 

Let us glance now — it can be only a glance — 
at the great literature of chivalry. When the Nor- 
man came to the battle of Hastings with the " Song 
of Roland " on his lips, he was a stern and military 
person, caring little for the arts or graces of life, less 
for its tenderer emotions. But during the twelfth 
century he softened much. He cultivated good man- 
ners ; he became not only a fighter, but a lover ; he 
developed a taste for the arts. Love-songs began to 
be written then ; gallant trifles, filled with fresh 
feeling for springtime and for the girls who em- 
bodied it. Little tales in prose, full of the same 



68 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



lyric spirit, broke now and then into song, and 
became what we call the chante-fables, — a literary 
form of which a lovely specimen has survived, to our 
great joy, in the Story of Aucassin and Nicolette. 
We see in songs and tales how a new spirit of 
courtly fantasy was replacing the old zest for battle. 
But, far greater than this movement, interesting 
though it is, is the epic development leading into 
technical romance, of the Anglo-Norman period. 
Epic There were four great cycles of mediaeval romance 

cvcIgs* 

developed in France, and therefore familiar to Eng- 
land. They took shape in the twelfth century. It 
is proof of the dominance of the Normans that the 
Beowulf story, with its Germanic affiliations, was 
forgotten in England, and the " Niebelungen Lied " 
had no vogue among the people who had first chanted 
of Sigurd. But these other cycles, branching out as 
they did into innumerable tales, often loosely con- 
nected with the central theme, had matter enough 
and to spare to feed the imagination. 
Charie- The first of these epic cycles was the cycle of Char- 
magne. lemagne and his Twelve Peers. The " Chanson de 
Roland," the earliest poem of the cycle, we already 
know ; a certain magnificent and valorous audacity 
is ever the keynote of the tales. The second cycle 
centred in the story of Alexander the Great. It 
Alexan- was presumably of Eastern origin, and it is full of the 
der - element of fantasy or magic. The third cycle came 
from the classic world ; it was the ancient " Tale of 
Troy," strangely transformed indeed in the telling ! 
The sympathy of the middle ages was with the 
Troy. Trojans. Troy became a quaint, walled, turreted 
town, such as may be seen in the background of 



PHASES OF MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 69 



mediaeval illuminations. The element of romantic 
love was what most impressed the mediaeval mind in 
the great story, and the most interesting result of 
the Troy cycle is Chaucer's winsome telling, after 
Boccaccio, of the hapless loves of two personages all 
but unknown to Homer, — Troilus and the coquette 
Cressida. The last great story which held the 
mediaeval heart was the story of King Arthur ; of Arthur, 
the knights of the Table Round ; of Lancelot and 
Guinevere ; of Tristram and Iseult ; and of the 
Quest of the Holy Grail. Differing in origin, all 
these stories were drawn into the one tale. In 
Arthurian romance, all the motifs of mediaeval story 
meet and blend. Here is the perfect ideal of Chris- 
tian valor; here the glamour of enchantment, Celtic 
and semi-Pagan at first in the tale of Merlin, Chris- 
tian and Catholic later. Here chivalric love, alike 
in its nobler and in its baser aspect, finds immortal, 
if tragic, expression in the mournful, brilliant figures 
of Lancelot and Guinevere, of Tristram and Iseult. 
Here, finally, the mystic spiritual passion which 
throbbed at the heart of the middle ages glows for- 
ever in the veiled chalice of the Holy Grail. 

As the middle ages go on, we can watch the great Decline of 
stories change in the telling. Slowly, imperceptibly, romance, 
the rude epic strains gain color and sentiment, gain 
also an immense number of incidents and of details, 
but replace a primitive grandeur by an interminable 
prolixity and an absence of singleness of aim. Epic 
has changed into romance, and as romances finally 
we know and quote the stories. Sure proof at once 
of popularity and of decay, these stories early began 
to be parodied. Even in the twelfth century, the 



70 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



so-called beast-epics, especially the tale of Reynard 
the Fox, present a travesty of the serious work, and 
in an allegorical satire attack, under the form of 
different animals, all the powers of Church and 
State. Direct burlesques of the romances are later 
not unknown, as witness Chaucer's " Sir Thopas." 
Yet, during four hundred years, undeterred by ridi- 
cule or by the coarse realism which is also to be found 
in mediaeval art, the mighty spirit of romance contin- 
ued to overarch and to inspire the medieval mind. 
Arthurian Of all these cycles of romance, the greatest, that 
of King Arthur, is the one in which England had 
most share. Thence in all probability it started 
when the middle ages were young ; thither for its 
perfect form it returned as they were dying. Far in 
the dim twilight of Celtic legend we catch glimpses 
of an heroic figure, partly mythological, partly per- 
haps historical, who bears the name of Arthur. In 
the Latin history of the Anglo-Norman, Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, who wrote in the middle of the twelfth 
century, we meet for the first time a developed 
Forms and Arthurian legend. From English Geoffrey it passes 
sources. ^ ^ e Frenchman Wace. Early in the thirteenth 
century, back again to England it travels and re- 
ceives the fullest treatment yet, and the first in the 
English tongue, from Layamon, a priest living on 
the river Severn. Meanwhile, in France the story 
has been growing fast and finding form in long 
romances. It has added to itself the branch which 
tells of Lancelot, the branch which tells of Tristram, 
the branch which tells of the Holy Grail. Thus 
enriched, Arthurian romance travels all over Europe : 
to Italy, to Germany ; finds shape in many tongues ; 



PHASES OF MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 71 



but returns at last to England, where, in the end of 
the fifteenth century, all the different branches of 
the story are condensed to one-tenth of their original 
bulk, brought into epic unity, and told in language 
of wonderful purity and romantic beauty, by Sir 
Thomas Malory. 

It is most interesting to watch the great story Deveiop- 
grow. In Geoffrey of Monmouth we have few ment " 
traces of the Arthur we know. We are introduced 
to a warrior chief, who fought twelve battles with 
the Saxons and the Romans. Merlin is in the story, 
and, briefly treated, Guinevere ; but we have no 
knights, no Table Round, no Holy Grail, and dreary 
records of fighting fill the bulk of the tale. In Wace, 
the spirit of chivalry is evident, and the Table 
Round is added. Layamon surrounds the birth and 
passing of Arthur with fairy enchantments, and thus 
adds that glamour of mysticism and magic which is so 
large a factor in the charm of Arthurian romance. 
But it is only with the entrance of Lancelot, in the 
French romances, — which were perhaps written by 
an Englishman, Walter Map, — that the crude fight- 
ing retires into the background, and the ill-starred, 
unhallowed love of Lancelot for Queen Guinevere 
furnishes the dramatic motif which is to the middle 
ages what the tale of Helen was to the ancient world. 
The wild story of Tristram and Iseult, with its Celtic 
magic, its Celtic sympathy with nature, its Celtic 
fierceness of emotion, enhances and emphasizes the 
presentation of the tragedy of lawless passion which 
destroys the Arthurian court. Then comes the story 
of the Holy Grail, bathed in purest moonlight, silver- 
wan, in contrast to the flood of hot sunshine which 



72 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



seems to beat upon us in the Tristram story. Here 
spiritual passion, never in the middle ages far from 
the greatest excesses, finds full sway, in the mystic 
quest for the Holy Thing, wherein all the knights 
engage ; the semi-Pagan figure of Merlin is lost to 
sight, and a Christian supernatural element appears, 
created by the ceremonial and the sacramental faith 
of the Catholic Church. Asceticism struggles with 
the terrible force of human passion, seeking to 
expiate and to redeem. Routed in Lancelot, it con- 
quers in Galahad, his son, the youthful knight, fairest 
product of the purely Christian imagination, in whom 
the two forces of chivalry and mysticism blend at 
last in a union of surpassing beauty. But Galahad 
is borne far over the sea to the spiritual city of 
Sarras, there to reign and die ; the Holy Grail van- 
ishes with him ; earthly passion resumes its sway ; 
and through deepening shadows the story moves 
majestically onward to the death of Arthur, Guine- 
vere, and remorseful Lancelot, and the disruption of 
the Table Round. 
Character. Through many centuries the story grew, but grew 
unconsciously, into an imaginative unity far more 
marvellous than had it been the product of any one 
man. It is the epic of mediaeval humanity, and all 
of natural and spiritual passion which the middle 
ages contained are summed in it. Sin-stained and 
smitten to a tragic close, the story still purifies and 
exalts. In its entirety, it presents with inexorable 
grandeur, severe as that of Greek drama, the slow 
retribution which attends on broken law. As it 
progresses, it enshrines, more fully than any other 
mediaeval work, the very ideal and image of perfect 



PHASES OF MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 73 



knighthood. Reading the pledge to which all the 
knights of the Round Table are sworn, we realize 
how altered and enriched is the ideal of heroism since 
the days of Beowulf, or even of Roland : — 

" Then the king stablished all his knights, and them 
that were of lands not rich he gave them lands, and 
charged them never to do outrage nor murder and always 
to flee treason. Also, by no means to be cruel, but to give 
mercy unto him that asketh mercy, upon pain of forfei- 
ture of their mercy and lordship of King Arthur for ever- 
more ; and alway to do ladies, damsels, and gentlewomen 
succour upon pain of death. Also, that no man take no 
battles in a wrongful quarrel for no law nor for world's 
goods. Unto this were all the knights sworn of the 
Table Round both old and young. And every year were 
they sworn at the high feast of Pentecost." 1 

Love and loyalty toward women ; courtesy ; mod- 
esty ; the code of honor even in mortal combat ; 
above all, a compassion for the weak and the con- 
quered hardly conceivable by the Pagan mind, — all 
these things have entered the conception of a perfect 
manhood. Much remains to be done, as we shall see, 
watching the growth of the nation, before the ideal 
of absolute heroism as we hold it to-day shall be 
formed ; yet in some ways it is a question whether 
we moderns have surpassed, or even equalled, the 
ideal of Arthurian chivalry ; and we still thrill with 
a large and pure admiration as we listen to that sum- 
ming up of all chivalry, the words pronounced over 
the dead body of Lancelot by his brother, Sir Hec- 
tor : — 

" Ah, Launcelot, he said, thou were head of all Chris- 
tian knights ; and now I dare say, said Sir Hector, thou 

1 Malory, " Morte D'Arthur," Book III, Ch. 15. 



74 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



Sir Launcelot, there thou liest, that thou were never 
matched of earthly knight's hand ; and thou were the 
courtliest knight that ever bare shield; and thou were 
the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse ; 
and thou were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever 
loved woman ; and thou were the kindest man that ever 
strake with sword j and thou were the goodliest person 
ever came within press of knights ; and thou was the 
meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among 
ladies ; and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortal 
foe that ever put spear in the rest." 1 



III. Literature of Catholicism 

The Romances of the Holy Grail are perhaps the 
noblest imaginative expressions of the religious ideals 
of the middle ages. But there exists, as we have al- 
ready said, an immense amount of literature from these 
centuries, produced or appropriated by the Church. 
It is mostly in Latin, the Church language ; it con- 
sists in sermons, moral treatises, and the like, but 
it also consists in stories, for to gain the mediae- 
val ear it was obviously necessary to have a tale to 
tell. The two most important collections of these 
religious or quasi-religious stories are the " Golden 
Legend" and the " Gesta Romanorum." It seems 
strange to rank the " Gesta Romanorum " with reli- 
gious literature, for the book is simply an immense 
collection of tales with all sorts of origin, Oriental, 
classic, as well as mediaeval, often far from edifying, 
and hard to reduce to a moral. But the times did 
not shrink from the task, and each story is followed 
by an allegorical interpretation, deducing lessons of 

i Malory, " Morte D' Arthur," Book XXI, Ch. 13. 



PHASES OF MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 75 



Christian faith and morals from the most unlikely 
details. Probably most readers skipped the morals ; 
but at all events they stand there, a warning for all 
time to the lover of allegory, and a witness to the 
audacity of the Church in sanctioning what people 
were bound to have whether she would or no. 

The " Golden Legend " is a collection of a very 
different character : it is almost wholly occupied 
with the legends of saints, some of them of great 
beauty, others puerile and tedious, and it is a perfect 
treas are-house still to any one who wants to under- 
stand the play of Christianity on men's minds. It 
was, of course, far more read than the Bible, for we 
must remember that neither in England nor else- 
where was the Bible read by the laity at this time ; 
and the religious ideas of the middle ages were 
probably more formed by this collection of tales than 
by any other influence. 

We cannot stop to enumerate other productions 
in religious mediseval literature, but we must men- 
tion what is in some ways the greatest of all, — 
the hymns in Latin, the 44 Dies Irse," the " Stabat 
Mater," St. -Bernard's "Rhythm of the Celestial 
Country," and the rest. They are the noblest lyric 
works of the middle ages. In them we can see the 
old prosody of the classic age gradually breaking 
up, yielding to a new music necessary to express a 
new range of experience and feeling. They have 
what is too often denied to the vast literature of the 
middle ages — conciseness and beauty of form ; they 
have an exaltation and delicacy of passion which 
puts them among the great poems of the world. 

The literature produced during these centuries in 



76 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



English, and the growth of the language in which 
Shakespeare was one day to write, we must study in 
the next chapter. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Saintsbury, The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of 
Allegory. W. P. Ker, Epic and Romance. Mills, History of 
Chivalry. The Accolade, by Helen Gray Cone, in Oberon 
and Puck, is a poem which tells with power of the initiation 
of the young knight, and his dedication to his ideals. 

Malory's Morte D'Arthur, scholar's edition, with full criti- 
cal apparatus, edited by Oskar Sommer. Popular editions, 
The Temple Classics, Dent, 4 vols. Library of English Classics 
(Macmillan), ed. by A. W. Pollard, 2 vols. John Rhys, 
Studies in the Arthurian Legend. Newell, King Arthur and 
the Table Round (chiefly translations from Chretiens de 
Troie). Sebastian Evans, The High History of the Holy 
Grail (translation from twelfth century French romance). 
The Early History of the Holy Grail, Early English Text 
Society. Syr Perceval, Thornton Romances, ed. by Halli- 
well-Phillips, also in Kelmscott Press publications. Peredur, 
Geraint, in the Mabinogion, tr. by Lady Charlotte Guest. 
The Prose Merlin (fifteenth century), Early English Text Soci- 
ety. Arthurian books in Geoffrey of Monmouth. Alfred 
Nutt, Studies in the Origin of the Holy Grail. G. V. Harper, 
The Holy Grail (Modern Language Association), Vol. VIII, 
p. 77. The Golden Legend, Temple Classics ; Selections, ed. by 
H. D. Madge (E. P. Dutton). Tristram and Iseult, tr. by 
Jessie Weston (Nutt). 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

The majority of the books mentioned above are popular and 
attractive to young people. An ordinary class would better 
spend all the time it can give to the literature of chivalry in 
reading Arthurian romance, including the legends of the Holy 
Grail. A good introduction is to learn by heart Tennyson's 
poem, " Sir Galahad." It is suggestive to compare the treat- 
ment of one episode, as the story of Elaine, or the passing of 
Arthur, in Malory, and in the " Idylls of the King." A vivid 
idea of the meaning of chivalry should be aimed at. To this 



PHASES OF MEDLEY AL LITERATURE 77 



end let each student follow the fortunes of one knight, as Per- 
ceval, Gawain, Palamides, Lancelot, Gareth. Show how each 
illustrated the ideal of chivalry ; how he failed. Compare, in 
class discussion, the knight as hero with the Pagan warrior, 
Beowulf, Siegfrid. Show how the ideal of heroism is develop- 
ing. Have we to-day advanced beyond this ideal ? Bring to 
class, if possible, copies of Abbey's Grail frescoes in the Boston 
Public Library. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

(See references above.) Mythological Elements in Ar- 
thurian Story. Origin and Early Forms of Arthurian Romance. 
The Epic Development of the Morte D'Arthur. The Education 
of a Knight. A Day in a Knight's Life. The Legends of the 
Holy Grail (see translation by Jessie Weston of Wolfram von 
Eschenbach's " Parzifal "). The Influence of the Worship of the 
Mediaeval Church on the Imagination. 



CHAPTER III 



LITERATURE PRODUCED IN ENGLAND 

I. Work in French and Latin on English 

Soil 

IT is strange to pass from the copious literature 
produced in French and Latin during the early 
middle ages to the silence of the English. For 
three hundred years after the Norman Conquest, 
nothing very great or beautiful, nothing, we may 
dare to say, which, from the point of view of art, 
has much power to interest us, was written in the 
English tongue. 

We must not think, to be sure, that the barren- 
ness of literature in English is quite the measure of 
the production of the nation during these centuries. 
In the great European confederation, " bound to a 
joint action and working to a common result," it is 
impossible to determine exactly the share taken by 
England ; but we do know that certain of the most 
interesting books written during this period in 
French or Latin were produced either on English 
soil or by men of English birth. Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouth has been already mentioned. He was a Welsh 
bishop ; and his Latin " History of the Kings of 
Geoffrey Britain," written nearly a hundred years after the 
mouth (d. Conquest, witnessed to the deathless vitality of the 
H54). Celtic spirit, and became to the world for hundreds 

78 



LITERATURE PRODUCED IN ENGLAND 79 



of years, indeed till after the time of Shakespeare, "Historia 
the very well-head of Romance ; Lear and Cymbe- Irftan- 
line are met in this book, as well as Arthur. A little mae ' 1147 ' 
before Geoffrey's day, more sober historians, of whom 
the chief was William of Malmesbury, escaped at wmiamof 
times the dry manner of the mere chronicle, and Jury^d" 
achieved something of that breadth of view and 
lnminousness of handling which makes history a 
branch of true literature. The " Gesta Romano- 
rum," that vast story-book, was probably compiled 
in England toward the end of the thirteenth cen- 
tury. In French, the " Lais " of Marie de France, Marie de 
who, despite her title, spent much of her life in last half 
England, are among the most important examples of century, 
the light verse-story. High in rank at the court of HeSJ/ii 
Henry II, lived a brilliant, elusive, interesting person 
named Walter Map. He, too, was a Welshman ; and Walter 
since he wrote the curious medley of satire, story, (cLmo). 
and fun called " De Nugis Curialium," he must have 
been one of the cleverest men of the middle ages. 
But perhaps he was a great deal more than this, for 
to Walter Map many critics assign the authorship of 
some of the noblest mediaeval romances, the Romance 
of Lancelot, and certain of the Romances of the Holy 
Grail. If Map wrote these romances, he was a very 
great man, and England possesses an author second 
only to Dante in fervor of imagination, large inven- 
tiveness, and spiritual passion, though, of course, far 
below Dante in power of utterance. But whether 
Map really wrote any or all of these Romances, we do 
not know. That some of the Romances, however, 
were shaped by Anglo-Normans, it is safe to assume. 



80 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



II. The Growth of the English 

The Eng- But most, if not all, of these writers came from the 
silence. new French strain in English life ; and the native 
Saxons were strangely unrepresented in letters. A 
few sermons, homilies, paraphrases of the Scriptures, 
legends of the saints, — a harvest of lyrics, charming 
indeed, but late and slender, — this is all the Eng- 
lish-speaking people have to show during this long 
time. For three hundred years is a very long time, 
longer than our whole American national history. 
During a longer time than English-speaking folk 
have possessed the American soil, the voice of Eng- 
lishmen was stilled. 

Some writers talk as if the Norman Conquest were 
responsible for this long stretch of silence. They talk 
as if the best traditions of our literature were in the 
days of Csedmon and Cynewulf, and as if we moderns 
should do well to return thither alone for inspiration. 
How false this point of view is becomes evident if once 
we reflect that the Norman Conquest by no means 
choked or suppressed a flourishing literature. Since 
the time of Alfred, the Anglo-Saxon race had had 
little or nothing to say ; since the eighth century, it 
had felt no impulse to great creative poetry. For 
some reason its development seemed to be arrested, 
and we may believe with M. Jusserand that, had the 
Normans never come to England, the English might 
have been as slow in producing a literature as their 
German cousins, whose national life did not blossom 
into imaginative expression till modern times. Prob- 
ably in the long run the Norman Conquest really 



LITERATURE PRODUCED IN ENGLAND 81 



accelerated and stimulated, if, indeed, it did not 
create, the power of self-expression in England. 

But, of course, for a time not much literature could Formation 
be written in English, because the English language language, 
did not yet exist. To shape that language, — to pre- 
pare an instrument for Shakespeare, for Milton, for 
Wordsworth, — was an achievement worthy to en- 
gross the activities of many a generation. The old 
Anglo-Saxon was dying, the English was not yet 
arisen. Meanwhile, the conditions were unfavorable 
for literature. The chief value of the scanty literary 
memorials of this period which we possess is for lin- 
guistic study ; their chief interest is the light they 
throw on the different stages in the gradual growth 
of English speech. 

When the Anglo-Saxons conquered the Celts, they The 
conquered their language, and only a few Celtic process * 
words found their way into our modern speech. 
When the Normans conquered the Anglo-Saxons, 
just the opposite thing happened, "For about two 
or three hundred years, the French language re- 
mained superimposed upon the English ; the upper 
layer slowly infiltrated the lower, was absorbed, and 
disappeared in transforming it. But this was the 
work of centuries." 1 The process is most interest- 
ing to follow. The nobles, the ruling class, spoke 
French, the poorer, simpler people, Saxon. But as 
time went on, the "lowe men," the rustics, wanted 
to learn French too, both from social ambition and 
for convenience' sake. " Their efforts had a remark- 
able result, precisely for the reason that they never 
succeeded in speaking pure French, and that in their 
1 Jusserand, " Literary History of the English People," p. 116. 



82 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



ill-cleared brains the two languages were never kept 
distinctly apart. The nobles, cleverer men, could 
speak both idioms without confounding them; but 
so could not these rurales, 1 who lisped the master's 
tongue with difficulty, mixing together the two 
vocabularies and the two grammars, mistaking the 
genders, assigning, for want of better knowledge, 
the neuter to all the words that did not designate 
beings with a sex, in other words, strange as it may 
seem, creating the new language. It was on the 
lips of 4 lowe men ' that the fusion first began ; they 
are the real founders of modern English." 2 
The result. The Anglo-Saxon had been an inflected language; 

that is, the words had changed their form, to show 
their relation to the thought and to other words in 
the sentence. Our modern English has cast off 
inflections, for the reasons that M. Jusserand sug- 
gests in the quotation just given ; inflections were 
too confusing to manage when two languages were 
blending their different forms. English shows the 
relation of words and the part they play in the sen- 
tence by putting them under the control of other 
words, which seems to us much the simpler and better 
way. But, putting aside inflections, the structure of 
English is Anglo-Saxon, not French. Nearly all the 
homely words which do the heavy work, the servant- 
words, like auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns, con- 
nectives, which are repeated over and over again in 
any page of writing, are Saxon. But if the structure 
of our language is Germanic, the vocabulary, the em- 
broidery upon the plain tissue, became to a surprising 

1 Country people. 

2 Jusserand, "Literary History of the English People," p. 236. 



LITERATURE PRODUCED IN ENGLAND 83 



degree French, and through the French it gained 
much of the rich expressiveness of the old Latin. 
No other modern language draws its power of 
expression from so many racial sources as the Eng- 
lish. Counting word for word, our debt to the 
French and Latin tongues is the heaviest. English 
contains twice as many words drawn from these 
languages as from the Germanic ; though, of course, 
in any given passage, this proportion would probably 
be more than reversed, because the Saxon words are, 
as we have said, those which have to be repeated 
again and again, and because many of the words of 
French-Latin origin are seldom used. If we study 
our vocabulary we may get a vivid picture of the 
state of society while our language was forming ; 
for the words of the arts and graces, the pastimes 
and intellectual pursuits of life, are usually French, 
while the words of humble practical toil and of family 
bonds and affections are mostly Saxon. Often, in 
the strife of tongues, the old Saxon word would be. 
routed and disappear : thus " courteous " or " polite " 
drove out " hende," " brave " drove out " frek," and 
the like ; sometimes the Latin word is the more 
common, as is the case with " color " and " hue," 
"use" and "wont," but this is rare. In a strife of 
tongues like that which we are watching, our sym- 
pathy almost inevitably goes sometimes with those 
that fall ; and we cannot help regretting some 
of the strong, simple, old English words that have 
been worsted in the fight. They have a direct 
and homely dignity quite different from the orna- 
mental, many-syllabled stateliness of the French 
and Latin derivatives. " The Againbite of Inwit " 



84 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



will seem to many of us a more expressive thing 
than " The Remorse of Conscience," though the two 
mean exactly the same. " Wanhope " touches the 
heart-strings with a sadder note than " despair " ; 
while " blee " for complexion, " fere " for companion, 
" ferly " for marvellously, " dree " for endure, " gryl " 
for horrible, " stour " for conflict, " gram " for indig- 
nation, " foreward " for covenant, " wort " for vege- 
table, have the strength of brevity. Most of these 
old words are gone past recall. Some lingered late, 
cherished by poets and simple provincial people, — 
one remembers Milton's "rathe primrose." Many 
have become degraded, as " ghost," of which the orig- 
inal meaning of " spirit" still lingers in the phrase 
" Holy Ghost," and " silly," of which the original 
meaning was "innocent" and so "blessed." Some 
people are trying to revive certain of these racy old 
words to-day : " mirkness," " thews," " croft," 
" leachcraft," "stead," and the like. Perhaps they 
.will succeed. But, however much one may love the 
old Saxon, no sane man can regret the enrichment 
of English by the countless words of French ex- 
traction which the growing nation needed for its 
self-expression and took to its heart. Think away 
from any long passage of Shakespeare or Tennyson 
all the words of French origin, and we see at once 
what grace, variety, expressiveness, flexibility, the 
English owes to the graft of the Norman-French 
upon the Saxon. 

III. Literature in English 

Now let us tell the short story of English letters 
during these three centuries, — from the middle of 



LITERATURE PRODUCED IN ENGLAND 85 



the eleventh century to the middle of the fourteenth, 
— dwelling for a moment on the few interesting 
works. We must remember that there was no uni- 
form English yet, and that they were all written 
in some local form, or dialect. There were three 
principal dialects, of which Chaucer was to exalt one, 
the Midland, to the rank of English. To the end of 
the twelfth century, that is for half the period, there 
is really nothing worth mentioning here. A long 
" Poema Morale " corresponds to its name ; it is a "Poema 
rhymed, didactic poem, in the old elegiac religious possibly 
strain of mournful brooding, familiar to the Anglo- reign of 
Saxon. At this time, the Normans were writing ^00-1135 
love-songs and romances : " The victor sings, the 
vanquished prays." But at the beginning of the 
thirteenth century we meet a really delightful and 
important book. This is Layamon's "Brut." We Laya _ 
had a little to say about it when we were talking mon's 

„ . , J T . . & "Brut," 

of Arthurian romance. It is not, in one sense, about 1205. 
an original work. After the frank fashion of medi- 
aeval good-fellowship which claimed common own- 
ership for all men in a good thing, Layamon 
borrowed his story of the legendary history of Eng- 
land from Wace. But he tells the story very well, 
with many poetic additions. He was a priest, living 
on the Severn, not far from the borders of Wales, 
and the Celtic enchantment is in his work. He 
wrote in a style strongly Saxon, which recalls the old 
hero-sagas ; only fifty French words are to be found 
in his whole poem, and his metre is alliterative, with 
only occasional rhymes. Yet the French influence is 
strong in him, showing itself in a certain gay court- 
liness, in magnificence of description, in a spirit of 



86 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



Horn, 
about 
1250, and 
Havelok, 
1270-80. 



The 

" Ormu- 
lum," 
about 
1215-1220. 



Lyrics, 
last half 
of 13th 
century. 



chivalry and romance which pervades the whole. 
Thus he was sensitive to all three elements which 
entered the life of the completed nation, and his 
" Brut " may almost be called the first poem of the 
whole English people. 

One or two romances probably of Danish origin 
took shape during the thirteenth century : the stories 
of King Horn, and of Havelok the Dane. They got 
into the English forms we know, however, through 
French originals, and show marks of their passage. 
A good deal of writing, religious in inspiration, both 
verse and prose, was also produced in this century : 
sermons, homilies, lives of saints, paraphrases of the 
Scriptures. One of the most important of these 
works, and extremely interesting for linguistic study, 
is the " Ormulum," a collection of paraphrases of the 
gospels for the day, interspersed with comments and 
allegorical interpretations, written by the priest- 
monk Orm. Only one-eighth of it has come down 
to us, but that eighth extends to ten thousand lines. 
Another interesting book, in prose, is the " Ancren 
Riwle," a kindly but severe book of instructions for 
the guidance of three young anchoresses. 

The French romances of the preceding century 
began to get into English versions during the thir- 
teenth century. But the one really beautiful and 
charming thing which this century produced was 
a little group of lyrics. They can be read in the 
fourth volume of the publications of the Percy Soci- 
ety. The freshness of the young life of the nation 
is in them. They are the first poems in English 
literature to evince the instinct for pure loveliness 
of form. Despite their quaint archaic language, 



LITERATURE PRODUCED IN ENGLAND 87 



they sing themselves to us as they must have done 
to their first readers : — 

" Lenten 1 is come with love to town, 
With blosmen 2 and with briddes 3 roune, 

That all this blisse bringeth j 
Dayes-eyes in the dales, 
Notes sweete of nightingales, 
Each fowl song singeth." 

The first line of this poem might serve as motto for 
the whole group. Spring has indeed " come with 
love to town," and spring and love and the fairness 
of sweet ladies form the burden of these little songs. 
They sing, also, with the same grace and music, in a 
strain of tender adoration of Christ and Mary ; and 
they sing of these great sources of mediaeval feeling, 
— love mystical and chivalric, — in words which 
blend three languages in naive reflection of the 
strange state of things in the nation : — 

" Scripsi hasc carmina in tabulis ! 
Mon ostel est en mi la vile de Paris : 
May y sugge 4 namore, so wel me is ; 
Yf hi deye for love of hire, duel 5 it ys." 

So trills the poet, with a little sense of mischief and 
saucy defiance ; and again, in gentler and reverent 
mood : — 

" Mayden moder milde, 
oiez eel oreysoun ; 
From shame thou me shilde, 
e de ly malfeloun. 

There is but a handful of these lyrics, and every 
one is worth reading. One of them has a lovely 
refrain : — 

1 Spring. 2 Blossoms. 3 Birds. 4 Say. 5 Devil. 



88 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



" Blow, northerne wynd, 
Send thou me my suetyng. 
Blow, northerne wynd, blow, blow, blow ! " 

"Here," says Mr. Saintsbury, "is Tennysonian verse 
five hundred years before Tennyson. The ' cry ' of 
English lyric is on this northern wind at last ; and 
it shall never fail afterwards." 

Moving down the generations, we have reached 
the fourteenth century. It was a time when the 
middle ages were a little over-ripe in Europe, and 
the first flush of creative power had faded. Archi- 
tecture, costume, politics, social life, all showed a 
tendency toward that exaggeration and intensity 
which is a symptom of decay. But in England 
the times had not yet come to their own, and the 
nation was yet waiting its poet. For over half 
the century expression was still denied. Books 
multiplied, indeed, but they were on the old lines. 
Religious homilies and legends in verse and prose, 
— some very genuine in the devout meditative 
earnestness which had from the first marked the 
Mundi," English, one collection, the " Cursor Mundi," a 
about 1300. treasure house of legendary lore; a handful of 
Laurence political poems by one Laurence Minot ; an increas- 
aSout 1360 num b er of translations and paraphrases, — these 
are all that meet us till the second half of the four- 
teenth century is passed. Almost, it seemed that 
the land of England was to lie fallow all through 
the great experiences of the middle ages, producing 
nothing of note. But so it was not to be. For 
hundreds of years secret forces had been moving in 
darkness toward creation. The new people, as soon 
as it had achieved unity, as soon as it was ready to 



LITERATURE PRODUCED IN ENGLAND 89 



take its place among the nations, was to find a voice ; 
and at last, in the second half of the fourteenth cen- 
tury, we meet with the first great English poet, the 
" maister deere and fadir reverent " of all who were 
to come after, — Geoffrey Chaucer. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Geoffrey of Monmouth. J. A. Giles, Six Old English 
Chronicles. William of Malmesbury. J. A. Giles, ed., 
Bonn's Edition. 

Layamon's Brut, edited, with translation, by Sir Frederick 
Madden. 

Morris and Skeat, Specimens of Early English, I, II. 
Gives selections from most of the English works mentioned in 
the text. 

T. R. Lounsbury, History of the English Language. A. C. 
Champney, M.A., History of English. G. P. Marsh, Lectures 
on the English Language ; The Origin and History of the 
English Language. Jens O. H. Jespersen, Progress in Lan- 
guage, with special reference to English. 

The publications of the Early English Text Society afford 
ample material for the study of the most interesting monu- 
ments of the language. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

Readings from Geoffrey of Monmouth and from Layamon 
are profitable and interesting. Much or little language study 
can be done. A valuable exercise is to select a good passage 
from Shakespeare, Milton, Charles Lamb, Matthew Arnold, or 
any other good author, and make the students track the words 
to their origin by the help of the Century Dictionary, studying 
the proportion and character of the words from each linguistic 
source. 



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CHAPTER IV 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 

THOUGH the middle ages were old in the four- Geoffrey 
tV t • Chaucer, 

teenth century, the English nation was young ; about 

it was only just born. And Chaucer, the first poet 

of the great united English race, has a heart as fresh 

as a child. His work is bathed in the pure sunlight 

of a May morning ; it is dewy like the " dayes-eye," 

to which he used to pay happy visits, watching its 

little petals awake and unfold at dawn. We have 

left our long study of origins and ancestors, of a 

nation struggling for expression, behind ; we reach 

a time when all that had been given by Saxon, by 

Norman, and by Celt, blended into one national 

temperament ; and just at this time the mysterious, 

unaccountable, heaven-sent light of genius, shining 

through the soul of Chaucer, showed the world what 

that union meant. 

Any one who wishes can read Chaucer, — 

" Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled," 

as his disciple Spenser rightly called him. He is 
the first author we have met whose work can be 
understood without study. There is no need to be 
master of archaic forms or strange grammar to catch 
the essential charm of his poetry. The new lan- 
guage, the English we all talk, slips musically off 
his tongue, disguised a little, to be sure, by quaint 

99 

LrfC. 



100 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



old spelling, and presenting, now and then, an 
unfamiliar word, but, on the whole, wonderfully- 
modern and simple. It is well worth while to take 
the slight trouble necessary to enjoy him. Of 
course, there is a scholar's knowledge which lies 
beyond, and cannot be gained without further effort ; 
but any ordinary person, after an hour or two of 
preliminary practice, can feel the poet's spell, and 
receive much of the best and most delightful that he 
has to give. 



I. Chaucer's Writings a Summary of the 
Middle Ages 

All the literary types which the middle ages de- 
veloped and enjoyed Chaucer made his own and 
touched with his sweet, peculiar charm. These 
types can really be studied to more advantage in 
his writings than anywhere else. Let us look for 
them there. 

Aiiegori- In the first place, Chaucer had the mediseval 
ca poems. k nac k dreading. Several of his most important 
poems are in the form, so dear to the mediaeval 
mind, of allegorical visions. He likes to tell how 
he would pore over " olde bokes," his delight, till 
he fell asleep in a maze, and waked in vision into 
a wonderful temple or the clear air of a spring wood- 
land, and met marvellous persons, and had strange 
experiences. All these allegories, this visionary 
work, show that Chaucer belonged to the same cen- 
tury as Dante. 

Saint Chaucer could write a saint legend too, as tenderly 

legends. fervently as any monk ; witness the " Lyf of 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



101 



Seinte Cecile," put into the mouth of the Second 
Nun in the " Canterbury Tales," and the Prioresse's 
touching story. But our poet is more at home in 
chivalry than in mysticism, though he likes a poetic 
miracle very much. His " Knight's Tale " is the 
most delightfully told of any mediaeval romance. Romances. 
He could turn around when it pleased him, though, 
and make fun of romances, as we see in his amusing 
parody, "The Rhyme of Sir Thopas," which he in- 
sisted on droning out to the Canterbury Pilgrims till 
the Host cut him short. 

Again, Chaucer took his full part in the mediaeval 
pastime of telling over again, in a way to please his 
own generation, the famous stories of the classic Classic 
world. His poems are steeped in all the classical retold, 
lore of which the middle ages could boast. Some- 
times he got his stories direct from Ovid or 
Yirgil, sometimes they came to him through the 
Italian. Wherever Chaucer touches the classics, — 
and he touches them frequently, — he shows the 
quaint, uncritical confusion of the mediaeval mind, 
dressing the person, the feelings, and the speech of 
his characters in the garb of his own day. 

In poems like " The Parlement of Foules," and Animal 
the "Nun's Priest's Tale," Chaucer clearly shows fabliaux, 
his indebtedness to those great animal epics which, 
as we have said, were immensely popular all through 
Europe during the middle ages. No one can make 
the creatures talk and play an allegorical role in 
satire and fun with more composure than he. The 
farmyard story of the Nun's Priest is indeed simply 
an offshoot, and a very enjoyable one, from the great 
Reynard tale. Chaucer also owed obviously a great 



102 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



deal to the Fabliaux ; the light, colloquial folk-tales 
which the Normans liked so well, — often coarse, 
usually humorous, dealing with the manners and 
customs of daily life. The fabliaux were a very 
democratic form of literature, quite different from 
the knightly romances, or the fine allegories dear to 
the court ; and the tales told by the common folk on 
their way to Canterbury, by the Miller, Reeve, and 
Shipman, and others, are fabliaux translated into 
terms of English common life, 
other We have not exhausted yet the various literary 

types to be found in Chaucer, though perhaps we 
have mentioned the most important. Chaucer could 
give strings of versified examples of the fates of 
illustrious men or women, or their misfortunes, 
after a fashion which the middle ages seem, curiously 
enough, to have enjoyed ; this he did, for instance, 
in "The Monk's Tale." He could write a sermon 
too, — not a bad one, though as dull as any priest 
could preach ; and for Chaucer to be dull was 
really a triumph of art over nature. He could write 
a scientific treatise for 44 litell Lowys, my sone." 
There seemed to be no end to his versatility, in 
form and matter. Allegory, romance, saint-legend, 
animal-epic, fabliau, — Chaucer knew them all, drew 
on them all. 

Chaucer rarely invented a story. He wandered 
for his originals all over Europe, from east to west. 
Yet there is a great deal in Chaucer, and it is what 
makes him immortal, that no 44 olde bokes " could 
give him. All his borrowings do not prevent him 
from being a great original poet. This is because 
he managed to do what few of his predecessors had 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



103 



done : get his own personality into his work. At 
times, he turned away from his literary traditions 
and inheritance, deserted his books, and drew from 
life ; then he is at his very best. The Prologue of 
the " Canterbury Tales " is drawn from no literary 
tradition, but is all his own. Even when his material 
is derived or copied, he reveals himself through his 
treatment. And a humorous, healthy, childlike, 
tender personality it is, at once sensible and sensi- 
tive, that the poems show us. 

II. Chaucer's Personality 

We have a portrait of Chaucer which is probably 
authentic, painted reverently from memory by order 
of his disciple Hoccleve. We gain various hints also 
of what the poet looked like, and quite full informa- 
tion about his tastes, from his poems. The Host in 
the " Canterbury Tales " tells us that he was big 
and stout round the waist ; that he kept staring on 
the ground, " as if he would find a hare " ; that he Traits, 
did dalliance to no wight, meaning, probably, that 
he kept rather quiet and by himself; and that he 
was of an "elvish countenance." One can see the 
shy yet kindly man, with his downcast looks, moving 
unobtrusively among the noisy pilgrims. 

In spite of his shyness, Chaucer must have been a 
sociable person, who liked his fellow-men and min- 
gled much with them ; he could not have described 
them with such inexhaustible sympathy otherwise. 
But he was a great bookman, too, and that meant 
more in those days, when books were rare and hard 
to find, than it does to-day. He makes amusing 



104 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



blunders in his scholarship sometimes, but like 
Shelley and other great imaginative men, he had 
in him the root of the matter : a keen delight in 
the intellectual inheritance of the race. 

Though he liked books so well, however, there was 
one thing he liked better, and that was, out-of-doors. 
He cared enough for nature to get up early to enjoy 
the freshness of the day, and that is more than can 
be said of most people nowadays. His special love 
among flowers was the daisy, and he tells us : — 

" In my bed there daweth me no day 
That I nam up and walking in the mede, 
To seen this floure agein the sonnen sprede, 
When it upryseth early by the morrow, 
That blisf ul sighte sof teneth al my sorrow." 1 

The nature that Chaucer liked was not wild nature, 
mountains and cataracts and tossing seas, such as we 
go far to seek to-day. He probably felt about such 
things in the way that one of his characters, Dorigen, 
in "The Frankleyn's Tale," does about rocks ; though 
poor Dorigen, to be sure, had a special reason ; — 

"Eterne God, that through thy purveyaunce, 
Leddest the world by certain governaunce, 
In idle, as men seyn, ye nothinge make : 
But, Lord, these grisly, fiendly rockes black, 
That semen rather a foul confusion 
Of werk, than any fair creatioun 
Of such a parfit wise God, and a stable, — 
Why have ye wroght this werk unresonable ? " 2 

1 "The Legende of Good Women," II, 46-50. 

2 "The Frankleyn's Tale," II, 865-872. 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



105 



He liked what all mediaeval men liked : sweet spring 
mornings, as that on which Palamon and Arcite first 
see Emelye ; well-ordered gardens and tidy woods, 

"Wher every tree stood by himselve, 
Fro other wel ten feet or twelve." 

He dearly loved green grass, — 

" as thicke y-set 
And softe as any veluet," 

especially when dotted with fragrant flowers. Some- 
times on a morning like this a vision would visit 
him, perhaps of the God of Love himself, arrayed in 
green embroidered silk, with a fret of red rose leaves, 
the freshest since the world was first begun ; some- 
times he had to content himself with hearing, — 

" The smale briddes singen clear 
Their blisful swete song pitous," 

as lovely as the song of angels spiritual. His joy in 
nature is that of a child delighting in bright detail 
of form and color, yet sometimes curiously inaccurate 
in observation. We feel as we read his fresh poetry 
that here, at least, blossoms forever the springtime of 
the world. 

Chaucer had his clear preferences, in-doors as well 
as out. Everybody likes to imagine a pretty room 
for himself, but not all of us can even dream of one so 
beautiful as Chaucer's, which had painted windows, 
gay with the whole pictured story of Troy, and fres- 
coes beside on the walls, painted with colors fine, 
both text and gloss, and all the " Romaunt of the 
Rose." He was a man of the fourteenth century, 
and so the best of life came to him through his eyes. 



106 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



He was full of wonderful powers of perception and 
of fresh sensibility, and he had a well of melody in 
his soul ; but when he began to reflect he was more 
than ever like an earnest child. 
Biogra- It is quite time that we should turn to a review of 
his life and work. Chaucer was probably born in 
1340, six years before the battle of Crecy, and he 
was not, like so many mediaeval authors, connected, 
even remotely, with the Church ; nor did he belong 
to the high order of knighthood, though he lived 
near the bright chivalry of the court. His father 
was a vintner, a plain man of business. Neverthe- 
less, Chaucer had all the instincts of the aristo- 
crat. He was at seventeen attached to the family 
of Lionel, third son of Edward III, and we know, by 
the way, that he had a pair of red and black breeches. 
Despite his broad sympathies, this early training de- 
termined largely the point of view which he never 
lost, that of the man of culture, the man of the 
world. Later, John of Gaunt, a great nobleman, 
another son of Edward III, became his patron ; and 
he married, probably before he was thirty years 
old, a girl named Philippa, who also was markedly 
under the protection of the court. But earlier than 
this Chaucer had some stirring experiences ; for he 
went to France with Edward III and fought an 
unlucky campaign when he was about nineteen 
years old, was taken prisoner by the French, and 
ransomed by the king himself. The young page 
must have become a person of some consequence. 
We find signs a little later of the favor in which 
he was held at court. He was valet of the king's 
chamber ; he received a pension ; he was appointed 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



107 



to honorable and profitable positions, such as comp- 
troller of customs and clerk of the king's works. 
They were business positions, these last, and we 
have evidence that Chaucer took them seriously, 
and made a shrewd, honest, competent business man, 
despite his dreamy habits. But perhaps the most 
important influence which his relation to the court 
brought into his life was that of Italy. To this fair 
country he was sent by the king two, perhaps three, 
times between his thirtieth and his forty-fifth year 
on diplomatic missions. He must have been a man 
to trust. Wonderful things were happening in Italy 
just then. The middle ages were older far than in 
England ; they were disappearing fast. In their 
place a new world was arising, a world full of en- 
thusiasm for the great learning and letters of an- 
tiquity, full of a new passion for art and beauty. 
Ancient Greek and Roman statues were being dis- 
covered at Pisa, and quickening a new ideal in the 
minds of artists. Giotto's Campanile at Florence, 
one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, 
was almost new, and Chaucer must have gazed on 
it. Dante had died more than fifty years ago, but 
the two other great men of the fourteenth century 
in Italy, Boccaccio and Petrarch, were both living, 
and Chaucer may have met them both. From the 
time of these Italian journeys dates the real ripening 
of his genius, and his debt to the great Italians is 
patent in all his poems. 

Chaucer's fortunes declined in his later life. At 
one time, after his wife's death, he was even, it would 
appear, in great straits for money, and miserable and 
unhappy therefore. A half-humorous, half-pathetic 



108 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



" Compleynt to his Purs " seems to have softened the 
heart of the king, Henry IV, who in 1399 granted 
him a small pension. But Chaucer did not need the 
pension long, for in 1400 he died, and was buried in 
Westminster Abbey, first of the great line of poets, 
to Tennyson and Browning, whose bodies lie there 
sleeping. With him died the childhood of England. 

On the whole, his must have been a happy life : 
full of color, interest, privilege, of contact with the 
best people and the most delightful things the 
times could offer. It is a proof of Chaucer's great 
heart and great genius that he became, not the poet 
of the court, as he might so easily have been, but 
of the whole English people. We should need no 
other evidence, indeed, of the depth of his English 
sentiment than the bare fact that, while all his com- 
peers at the court were using French, he chose to 
write in the tongue of the plain people. 



III. Chaucer's Work 

French While he was still young and under French influ- 
ence, Chaucer translated the poem which had more 
vogue than any other in mediaeval Europe ; the 
French "Romaunt of the Rose." Most of Chaucer's 
" Rose " is probably lost to us. There is a charm- 
ing poem, a translation of part of the French poem, 
bound in with the editions of his works ; but critics 
tell us that none of it can be his, except, perhaps, 
the first 1705 lines, and just possibly the conclu- 
sion. A few other poems have come down to us 
from what is known as Chaucer's French period ; 
the most important, "The Deth of Blaunche the 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



109 



Duchesse," or, as it is sometimes called, " The Book 
of the Duchess." This poem was composed to 
lament the death of the young wife of Chaucer's 
patron, John of Gaunt. It is full of prettiness, of 
sentimental grace, of the mannerisms then popular ; 
but through its conventional phrases we can see a 
real sorrow, and it contains a lovely, carefully 
wrought description of ideal womanhood. All the 
work of this period is delicately serious, it is full of 
echoes ; it has no touch of the delightful humor 
and the direct observation that Chaucer afterward 
developed. 

After he had travelled under Italian skies, and T * a ^J 
breathed airs from the past and the future, Chaucer's 
genius deepened. His heart, which had lingered in 
sentiment, began to master the secrets of passion, 
and his imagination learned to soar into a region 
far loftier than he had yet explored. " Troilus and 
Cressida," which he wrote at this time, adapting 
and improving from Boccaccio's epic, the " Teseide," 
is more than a charming and exciting story ; it is 
a study in character and feeling. We know all the 
people in it ; the bewitching Cressida, the melan- 
choly Troilus, and the fat, garrulous, kindly, low- 
minded old Pandarus, Cressida's uncle, who brings 
the lovers together. Chaucer's large modernness of 
manner and his humorous understanding of character 
appear for the first time in this poem. 

Chaucer wrote, during this same period, " The 
Parlement of Foules," a sprightly, pretty allegory 
of bird life, in which he returns to the French art- 
tradition ; he wrote also " The Legende of Good 
Women," interesting as an attempt to put a number 



110 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



of separate tales together in a sort of dramatic set- 
ting. It has a lovely prologue, but Chaucer found 
the stories monotonous and left the poem unfinished. 
He wrote now also what is perhaps the loftiest flight 
of his imagination, "The Hous of Fame." It is a 
splendid thing, a very vision. And yet, through it 
all, though it sweeps us up into the sky, Chaucer's 
imagination does not really leave the earth. Life 
earthly, not life spiritual, preoccupies him. The 
critics say that Chaucer was profoundly influenced 
by Dante, and there is evidence in his poems that 
he read and honored the great Florentine. But his 
" Hous of Fame " is neither in hell nor heaven, nor 
on the steep purgatorial mount ; it abides in the free 
sky of pure fantasy. The humane and literary influ- 
ences of Italy played upon his genius, not its strange 
mystic fervor. He is brother in spirit to Boccaccio, 
not to Dante. 

English During all these earlier years of his life, Chaucer 
was writing from time to time a story which he 
afterward worked into the framework of the " Can- 
terbury Tales." And now he turned away from 
masters, and found himself : the first great English- 

Canter- ma n to show us the new England. The " Canter- 
bury 

Tales. bury Tales" were the work of his ripened genius, 
in the last fifteen years of his life. The poem tells 
how a company of pilgrims rode together in the 
April sunlight to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket 
at Canterbury, telling stories by the way, and chat- 
ting to one another. It was quite the fashion to 
find some setting, in this way, into which a number 
of stories could be fitted. The other most famous 
example comes from Italy : it is the " Decamerone " 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



111 



of Boccaccio, and it tells how a company of gay 
young men and women fled from plague-stricken 
Florence once upon a time, and in the rose- 
gardens on the hill forgot that sorrowing city, 
wiling away their time with love-making, romance, 
and song. Something of Italian intensity, some- 
thing of frivolity too, is in that scheme. Chaucer's 
is more English, happier, more healthful. It gives 
us the pleasant sense of onward movement ; we feel 
the jogging, leisurely advance of the horses as the 
motley crowd pass between the April hedgerows, 
entertained by the incidents of the way, and listen- 
ing to one story after another. Pilgrimages played 
an important part in mediasval life. They might be 
a means of mortification, and an expression of spiritual 
passion ; they might be a delightful social function, 
a way of enjoying the pleasures of travel. Chaucer's 
pilgrims were sincerely religious, but they were also 
having a splendid holiday. Who can blame them ? 
All England was in a holiday mood just then, full 
of zest for adventure and experience. 

The pilgrims, gathered together by chance, met 
first of an evening at the Tabard Inn, in Southwark, 
London ; and a mixed assemblage they were. There 
are nine and twenty of them, and Chaucer is of the 
company, and goes about making friends so vigor- 
ously that before bedtime he knows them all. So 
does the Host of the inn, a merry man and a fair 
burgess. He it is who is the godfather of the 
" Canterbury Tales," for his is the proposition that 
they should tell stories on the morrow as they ride, 
and that the best story-teller be rewarded by a sup- 
per at the common cost on their return from pil- 



112 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



grimage. He was a sly innkeeper, mine host ; we 
may be sure that the supper would not have been 
"good cheap." Meanwhile, he will ride forth with 
them on the morrow, and show them the way ; and 
in the fresh morning light forth starts the company. 

As we watch them, mediaeval England passes be- 
fore us. It is impossible to help talking about these 
people as if they were real, so vivid has Chaucer 
made them. We notice the Knight first. It is exactly 
like meeting a knight in real life after knowing him 
in romance, and we are glad to find that he is a very 
perfect gentle knight, valiant and courteous, a gen- 
tleman and a peacemaker, quite worthy to be a Fellow 
of the Table Round. His son is with him, a curly- 
haired young squire, beautifully dressed in fresh 
embroidered clothes ; he can sing and play the flute 
and write poetry and dance ; he can make love, too, 
and hotly, otherwise his education would be incom- 
plete, and his pretty head is full of romances ; he is 
courteous, lowly, and serviceable, and deferential to 
his father, as he ought to be. 

Then there is a yeoman, dressed in green, with a 
brown face and close-clipped hair ; and a Lady Pri- 
oress, a most delicate person, a little affected, very 
courtly and well-bred : a real fine lady. She sings 
through her nose, though, Chaucer tells us, and 
the French she speaks so fluently is not Parisian, as 
we are slily informed; she has another nun and 
three priests with her. Then comes a monk. He 
is a pleasant, vigorous gentleman, but not especially 
unworldly ; the bells on his bridle as he rides are 
more agreeable to him than the bells of a chapel; 
he enjoys a fat roast swan, and is devoted to hunt- 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



113 



ing. Various churchmen ride on Chaucer's pilgrim- 
age, and he gives us a very unpleasant picture of 
them. We would like to think that he picked out 
bad specimens, in his Friar, his Summoner, and his 
Pardoner ; we are glad to remember, as we read 
about them, that Wyclif was preaching about this 
time. But all these painful studies are redeemed 
by the beautiful picture of the poor parish priest, 
who rides with the pilgrims, silent for the most part, 
but protesting humorously when the Host grows over 
profane. It is an exquisite study of simple, loving 
consecration, of Christian poverty and love : — 

" Christe's lore and his apostles twelve 
He taught, but first he followed it himselve," 

says Chaucer. 

Sundry professional people are in the company : 
for instance, a clerk or scholar of Oxford, who looks 
hollow and soberly, and is in threadbare clothes. He 
did not care, Chaucer tells us ; he spent every penny 
he could get in books and learning. There is a law- 
yer, a busy man, but one who seemed busier than he 
was ; and a doctor whose study, alas, was full little 
on the Bible. There are men of business,' a mer- 
chant, a reeve or bailiff, a manciple or steward, and a 
Franklin, a good, vigorous man from the country, 
with a complexion as fresh as a daisy. And min- 
gling with the fine people are a number of common 
folk with quite shocking manners, who seem hail-fel- 
low-well-met with every one on this happy holiday : 
a miller and a cook and a sailor and a carpenter, and 
other working people, and a Wife or woman of Bath, 
whom it is really remarkable that the Prioress could 



114 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



tolerate, though our loss would have been irreparable 
indeed if she had not gone on that pilgrimage. Then 
there is the jolly stout Host, with his bright eyes. 
And finally, a demure, quiet-looking man named 
Geoffrey Chaucer. 

It is in the Prologue to the " Canterbury Tales " 
that we are told all about these people, and this 
Prologue, with its broad, loving, merry descriptions 
of the world he saw, is Chaucer's best title to 
immortality, better than all the sweet and graceful 
romancing of his early years. But now come the 
stories, linked together by little dramatic interludes. 
The pilgrims are having a beautiful time. No one 
is in a great hurry to arrive at the shrine. This is 
their holiday, and when they get back there will be 
a supper. The stories that they tell are immensely 
varied, and in almost all cases fit exactly the char- 
acters who tell them. They alternate in a rough 
and ready fashion, from serious religion and romance 
spoken by the gentry, to tales of broad rough humor 
told by the more common folk. Some are better 
than others, and some we hardly care to read to-day ; 
but we need to take them all together if we would 
understand mediaeval England. We can mention 
only a few of the stories here. 

The Knight tells the first tale ; and a " noble 
storie " it is, as all the pilgrims agree, a story of 
love, and war, and honor. It tells how Palamon and 
Arcite saw from their prison, and loved, the fair 
Emelye as she walked in her garden, and of all the 
sorrows and adventures that thence befell. The 
story is taken from Boccaccio, and Chaucer had 
already told it once, in a version lost to us, but this 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



115 



time he has told it supremely well. The Miller and 
the Reeve follow the Knight, and their coarse sto- 
ries, though they can give no one pleasure to-day, 
are wonderfully well told. It is difficult to see 
why the Man of Law should tell the story of 
Constance, except that Chaucer had the story by 
him, and wished to insert it somewhere. On the 
other hand, the story of the little singing martyr 
boy is excellently put into the mouth of the Prioress, 
who joins with modest pleasure in the tale-telling, 
when timidly and awkwardly invited by the Host. 
As for Chaucer himself, it is with sly humor that 
he represents himself as telling first the parody on 
Romances, " Sir Thopas," and then, when the Host, 
bored beyond endurance, interrupts him, the "little 
thing in prose," the interminable "Tale of Meliboeus." 
The Nun's Priest must have been a merry man, for 
he tells the delectable tale of Chaunteclere the Cock 
and his wife, Dame Pertelote ; and Chaucer's humor 
never found more gay expression than in the descrip- 
tion of the strutting cock with his splendid comb 
and resplendent legs, and the hen whose beauty he 
adores, she is "so scarlet red aboute her eyen." 
The tales of the Friar and some of the others are 
far from pleasant, but so are the speakers. As for 
the Wife of Bath, with her scarlet stockings and her 
bold face, riding astride her horse with her large 
hips, she is an immortal picture ; and her candid 
outpouring of confidence in the prologue to her 
tale is the most living evidence we have of what 
life meant in the fourteenth century to a hearty, 
vulgar Englishwoman of the middle class. We are 
a little surprised, after her revelation of herself, that 



116 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



she tells a charming story of fairy lore ; but, after 
all, she comes from just the class where such lore 
lingered longest. The Clerk of Oxford tells the fa- 
mous, tender story of Patient Griselda. The Squire 
is only twenty years old, and he loves marvel and 
sentiment, and tells — but his story is unfinished 
— the tale in the name of which Milton sought to 
summon Chaucer from the dead : — 

" The story of Cambuscan bold." 

The Second Nun has a fervid religious legend, the 
" Life of Saint Cecilia "; a Yeoman who joins them in 
the most dramatic interlude of the poem has, not a 
story, but a bitter outpouring of anger against his 
whilom master, a Canon who practised alchemy and 
cheated the unwary. Finally, as the pilgrims come 
near Canterbury their mood sobers, and the last Tale, 
as the series stands, is no tale at all, but a long, sim- 
ple, devout sermon, preached by the Parson, which 
we will hope edified the drunken Miller, the Cook, 
and the Wife of Bath, as well as the Clerk and the 
Knight, and prepared them all for their devotions. 

So the series, not half finished, comes to an end. 
Chaucer had meant, at first, to have each character 
tell two tales on the way out and two going home. 
Not half that number was written. 



IV. Chaucer's Art and Place 

Chaucer's We said that it was the revelation of his own 
personality that gave undying charm to Chaucer's 
poetry. Perhaps it is only another way of saying 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



117 



the same thing to say that his charm is due to his 
perfect art. For art is personality set free. Of the 
substance of his work and its spirit we have perhaps 
spoken enough; but we ought to say a little more 
about the great work that he did in producing his 
poems in beautiful form. His strength lies, of course, 
in his power to tell a story. Chaucer had an art 
which the middle ages before him had rarely pos- 
sessed; he knew what to leave out. Mediaeval 
romances trail along with insufferable prolixity from 
incident to incident, and often move to no particu- 
lar end. Chaucer had the instinct for unity and for 
brevity. He selected only the significant, and he 
stopped when he got through, which is one of the 
greatest arts in the world. There are, for the true 
lover of poetry, few superfluous lines or words even 
in the "Canterbury Tales." And then Chaucer 
could get the music in his soul into his verse. Like 
his own Friar, he could " make his English sweet 
upon his tongue." He brought into the new lan- 
guage all the daintiness and lightsome grace of the 
French. He discarded the heavy dignity of the old 
alliterative line, and used rhyme. He tried various 
stanza forms and handled them with a harmony all 
his own, though they were often borrowed from con- 
temporary French writers ; but he was most at home 
in the rhyming ten syllable couplet, which ever since 
his day has been one of the favorite instruments 
of English verse. His music is light, sweet, fault- 
less, very pure. No one since has quite caught his 
magic, though William Morris has pleasantly imi- 
tated it in some of the poems of his " Earthly 
Paradise." 



118 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



Chaucer's We call Chaucer our best representative of the 
past and middle ages ; yet his work is full of subtle sugges- 
tions of a civilization still to dawn. In many points 
his temperament was not that of his own day. There 
was nothing of the mystic in him; his romance was 
superficial, not ingrained; only when he reaches 
the broad and kindly realism of the Prologue is he 
really and fully at home. His feet never started 
upon the Quest of the Grail, nor was he visited by 
even a fleeting vision of the holy thing. Spiritual 
mysteries did not attract him; he was not troubled 
by speculations about the next world. 

" His spirit changed house and wente there, 
As I cam never, I can not tellen where." 1 

These brief words, in which he dismisses the soul of 
the dying Arcite, sum up his theology; it is not the 
common attitude of his time, which, though not 
always speculative, was sensitively conscious of a 
spiritual world pressing very near the world of 
matter. But Chaucer was a child of this earth, and 
he saw it as very good. He loved the homely human 
qualities : cheerfulness, loyalty, honor. He had a ten- 
der heart even for people who practised very few of 
the virtues, on the simple score of their humanity. 
In this love of the earth, in his responsiveness to 
beauty, in his enthusiasm for learning, in the slightly 
critical tone which tinges his work, and finally in his 
unerring instinct for perfection of form, he suggests 
the characteristics of the time that was to come. 
Evening star of the middle ages, morning star of the 
Renaissance — all honor to him, best of English 

i " The Knighte's Tale." 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



119 



story-tellers, first Englishman who combined imagi- 
native vision with beautiful English speech. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

W. Skeat, Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 7 vols. 
Students' Edition, 1 vol. A. W. Pollard, Ed., The Works of 
Geoffrey Chaucer, Globe edition. 

A. W. Pollard, Primer of Chaucer. John Saunders, 
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, annotated and accented, with 
illustrations of English life in Chaucer's time. Ward, Life of 
Chaucer, English Men of Letters Series. Lowell, My Study 
Windows, essay on Chaucer. Minto, Characteristics of English 
Poets. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, 3 vols. Mrs. Haweis, 
Chaucer for Schools. 

Clarendon Press edition of Prologue and Knight's Tale, 
Sonne's Preste's, Prioress's, Monk's, Clerk's, Squires's Tales, the 
Rhyme of Sir Thopas, and many of the minor poems. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

The more that can be read of Chaucer the better. The " Pro- 
logue," " The Knight's Tale," " The Nun's Priest's Tale," are best 
for beginning, with selections of biographical interest from 
the minor poems. Close consecutive discussion of text is the 
best method to draw near to a great author. Chaucer's humor, 
Chaucer's feeling for nature, Chaucer's sentiment, Chaucer's 
characterization, Chaucer's vocabulary, Chaucer's rhythms, 
Chaucer's attitude toward the Church and churchmen, and 
various other topics, may be made the themes of special dis- 
cussions. 



120 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



CHAUCER'S WORKS 



It may be broadly stated that the sequence of Chaucer's writings, as 
given below, finds general acceptance, though many individual dates 
are doubtful. It is also generally agreed that Chaucer's work falls 
into three periods, — the first that of his apprenticeship, when his life 
at court brought him under the influence of French models ; the middle 
period, when his diplomatic missions had brought him strongly under 
Italian influence ; the third period, that of the " Canterbury Tales," in 
which Cbaucer has clearly become master of his own " English " style. 
The middle period will contain all the longer works previous to the 
" Canterbury Tales." Some critics, who consider that the " Canterbury 
Tales " were finished within a comparatively few years, count the last 
decade of Chaucer's life, which would then show but a few minor 
poems, a period of decline. 



Of the existing 
version, the part 
known as A is 
held by many to 
be of Chaucer's 
early work. 

Usually placed 
before 1369, and 
called the first 
original work ex- 
tant. Yet some 
high authorities, 
1369-1371. 

About 1369. 

Ten Brink, 1374. 



TheRomaunt of 
the Rose. See 
text. 



The Compleynte 
unto Pite. 



The ABC. 



Earliest example of the 
famous Chaucer stanza, or 
" rime royal." 



An alphabetical prayer to 
the Blessed Virgin based 
upon a similar " A B C " in a 
book by Guillaume de De- 
guilleville, a French Pil- 
grim's Progress of the 
fourteenth century. 



(In regard to the three poems above, there is little agreement among 
authorities as to date, whether they are to be placed before or after the 
" Dethe of the Duchesse.") 



Soon after 1369. 



About 1374, per- 
haps earlier. 



The Dethe of 
Blaunche the 
Duchesse. 

Lyf of Seint 
Cecyle. 



Opening incident, "Ceyx 
and Alcione," from Ovid's 
' ' Metamorphoses, ' ' Whole 
form of the poem French. 

Later assigned to the Sec- 
ond Nun in the " Canterbury 
Tales . ' ' Invocation partly a 
paraphrase from Dante. 
Story from "Legenda Aurea." 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



121 



After return 
from first Italian 
mission, 1373. 

Toward the 
close of the decade 
1369-1379. 

Toward the 
close of 1369-1379. 



Probably just 
after the return 
from the second 
Italian mission, 
1379. 

Difficult to date. 
Some authorities 
say shortly after 
1373-1374; others, 
about 1380. 

Difficult to date. 
Probably about 
1380. 

About 1381. 



About 1381- 
1383. 



1382. 



The "Troilus" 
period. 

The "Troilus" 
period, perhaps as 
late as 1385. 

Perhaps begun 
some years before 
1383, laid aside, 
and taken up 
when " Troilus 
and Criseyde" 
was finished, 1383- 
1384. 



Story of Gri- 
selde. 



Story of Con- 
staunce. 

Twelve " Trage- 
dies" of Great 
Men and Women. 

The Compleynt 
of Mars. 



A Compleynt to 
his Lady. 



Anelida and 
Arcyte. (Unfin- 
ished.) 

Boece. 



Troilus and 
Criseyde. 



The Parlement 
of Foules. 



To Eosemounde. 

Chaucer's Words 
unto Adam his 
Owne Scryvene. 

The Hous of 
Fame. (Unfin- 
ished.) 



" Clerk's Tale." An Eng- 
lish version of Petrarch's 
Latin version of a tale by 
Boccaccio. 

"Man of Law's Tale." 
From the Anglo-French 
Chronicle of Trivet. 

The first part of the 
' ' Monk' s Tale , ' ' whose trage- 
dies fall into two distinct 
groups. 

The story is founded on 
one told in Ovid's " Meta- 
morphoses," with which 
Chaucer combines the popu- 
lar astronomy of the day. 

A series of fragments in 
different metres, — partly 
written in Dante's terza 
rima. 

About a fifth of the poem 
is based upon Boccaccio's 
"Teseide" and Statius's 
" Thebais." 

A prose translation of Boe- 
thius's "De Consolatione," 
one of the most popular books 
of the fourteenth century. 

By far the longest of 
Chaucer's single extant po- 
ems, the striking achieve- 
ment of the middle period. 
Based upon Boccaccio's "II 
Filostrato." 

Celebrates the winning 
and wooing of Anne of Bo- 
hemia by Kichard II. Uses 
material taken from Cicero, 
from Boccaccio, and from 
Alain de l'lsle. 

A charming little ballade 
of three stanzas. 

A playful rating of his 
scribe for mistakes in copy- 
ing "Boece" and "Troilus 
and Criseyde." 

" With this poem we leave 
the period of the poet's fin- 
ished work. From this time 
on his plans were far more 
ambitious . . . but the "Hous 
of Fame," the "Legende of 
Good Women," and great- 
est of all the "Canterbury 
Tales" were none of them 
completed." 



122 

1385. 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



About 1385 
(when probably 
Chaucer himself 
•went on pilgrim- 
age to Canter- 
bury) , possibly as 
late as 1387. The 
writing of the 
great body of the 
" Tales," repre- 
senting one-half of 
Chaucer's extant 
work, was proba- 
bly included 
within the next 
six or seven years, 
though it is possi- 
ble that he may 
have continued 
writing them up 
to the end of his 
life. 

After 1382, and 
probably before 
1390. 



1391. 



The Legende of 
Good Women. 
(Unfinished.) 



The plan of 
the "Canterbury 
Tales." 

The Prologue, 
the Talks by the 
Way, and a large 
proportion of the 
Tales. 



The Former 
Age. 

Fortune. 

(Called in the 
Mss. Balades de 
visage sans pein- 
ture.) 

Truth. 

Gentilesse. 

Lak of Stedf ast- 



Treatise on the 
Astrolabe. 



"The poem was intended 
to consist of a Prologue, the 
stories of nineteen women 
who have been true to love, 
and the legend of the crown 
of womanhood, Queen Al- 
cestis." Only nine of the 
twenty legends were written. 
The sources were Ovid, Vir- 
gil, Boccaccio, and Guido 
delle Colonne. 

" For about one-third of the 
'Tales' no original, prop- 
erly so called, is known to 
exist, but from the far East, 
or from France, Italy, or 
Germany, stories with sim- 
ilar plots have been un- 
earthed which show that the 
idea was already in existence 
and only waited for Chaucer 
to develop it." Among 
known sources of definite 
"originals" are Boccaccio, 
Ovid, Livy, Jacobus de Vo- 
ragine, Nicholas Trivet, Jean 
de Meung. 



' 'A pleasant rhapsody upon 
the good old times." 

A triple ballade with a 
single envoy in praise of the 
friend of the "unpainted 
face " who is faithful in ad- 
versity. 

' ' Truth " and " Genti- 
lesse" show Chaucer in his 
gravest mood. ' ' Lak of Sted- 
fastnesse " is chiefly notable 
for its envoy to Richard. 

The last five poems all 
show the influence of Boe- 
thius, and in several of them 
there are suggestions from 
the " Roman de la Rose." 

Prose translation of the 
Latin version of a treatise 
by Messahala, an Arabian 
astronomer of the eighth 
century. 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



123 



About 1393. 



Difficult to date. 
Probably about 
1393. 



1396, 



1399. (Perhaps 
earlier.) 



Envoy 
gan. 



Compleynt of 
Venus. 



Envoy to But- 
ton. 



Compleynt to 
his Purs. 



A playful reproach to his 
friend Henry Scogan, with a 
serious request for help, 
which may have brought the 
pension of 1394. 

Three ballades, transla- 
tions more or less free, from 
the famous Savoyard poet, 
Sir Otes de Granson. 

" This bitter-sweet ballade 
touches marriage, and is 
quite characteristic of the 
poet." 

" A sadly humorous poem, 
perhaps the last from the 
poet's pen." 





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CHAPTER V 



THE CONTEMPORARIES OF CHAUCER 

I. Lesser Writers of the Fourteenth Century 

THERE were other noteworthy people writing in 
England during that late flowering season of the 
middle ages, the last half of the fourteenth century, 
though there were no others so great as Langland 
and Chaucer. It is well worth while to look back 
now and then as we pursue our long journey over 
the road that we have travelled, and to get propor- 
tions at a glance. If we do this now, our imagina- 
tion reviews a long stretch of almost barren centuries, 
beginning before the Normans came to England ; 
then suddenly it comes into this little region of blos- 
som, these fifty years when men were mysteriously 
impelled to speech and song. We wonder if the peo- 
ple who lived then realized what was happening. 
Sir John Prose usually develops more slowly than poetry, 
vifie d i4th an( ^ little prose interesting for its art values was pro- 
century, duced in this period; but there is at this time one 
prose book in our language which we must certainly 
not pass over. This is " The Voyages and Travels," 
purporting to have been enjoyed and recorded by one 
Sir John Mandeville, Knight. There never was any 
Sir John Mandeville. After centuries, during which 
the public has taken him seriously, we must now re- 
luctantly send that worthy knight into the world of 

130 



CONTEMPORARIES OF CHAUCER 131 



shades, to keep company with Crusoe and Gulliver. 
But although he has vanished, to our great loss, the 
book remains, to our great profit : and though it was 
first written in French, the English version is so racy 
in style as well as so delightful in matter that it has 
real importance. It began in English the literature 
of imagined adventures which has always been popu- 
lar ; and Defoe himself cannot tell us with a graver 
air of conviction the extraordinary doings of Crusoe 
than the author of Mandeville shows, in describing 
the people whose one foot is so great that it serves 
as a parasol, and the country where there are many 
serpents because of the heat and the abundance of 
pepper, and the lake of tears wept by Adam and 
Eve when driven out of Paradise, and the pearls 
at the bottom thereof. Here and there, mingled 
with legend and invention, are curious echoes of 
fact, doubtless traditional from some real traveller. 
The book shows better than anything else that has 
come down to us how people thought of the world 
they lived in, more than a century before the sailing 
of Columbus. 

Nothing else of importance meets us in prose. But Revival of 
in verse, the fourteenth century produced one devel- tiveverse. 
opment full of interest. A little before Chaucer 
wrote, certain poets made an attempt to recall poetry 
from French levity to Anglo-Saxon soberness and 
substance, and revived for the time the old alliter- 
ative line. Apart from Langland, of whom we shall 
talk presently, the most important poems of this kind 
that have come down to us may have been the work 
of one man ; if so, he was a man of genius so pene- 
trating and tender as to rank almost with Chaucer and 



132 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



"Sir 

Gawayne 

and the 

Green 

Knight," 

about 

1360. 



"The 
Pearl, 
about 
1360. 



John 
Gower, 
about 
1330-1408. 



Langland. u Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight," 
an Arthurian romance, two didactic poems, " Clean- 
ness " and " Patience" ; and finally the first religious 
elegy in English, an exquisite poem which we call 
u The Pearl," are the works ascribed to him. They 
are written in the West-Midland dialect, are harder 
to read than Chaucer or even Langland, and are pro- 
bably somewhat earlier ; but they have grace and 
charm, and they reveal a temperament as individual 
and lovable as Cynewulf's or Wordsworth's. " Sir 
Gawayne " is a fine story, finely told. " The Pearl" 
tells how the author mourned the death of his little 
daughter, and how a vision of her came to bless him. 
The poem has a reality, both in the religious and in 
the human feeling, which few mediseval visions pos- 
sess. It is indeed a pearl, a beautiful thing born out 
of sorrow. There was joy among lovers of poetry 
when this poem was recently discovered ; and Ten- 
nyson bade it welcome in four charming lines. 

During all the Chaucerian period, there lived and 
wrote copiously one John Gower. There is every- 
thing in Gower that there is in Chaucer, — except 
genius. His poem, like the " Canterbury Tales," 
is a collection of stories ; these stories reflect the 
tastes and interests and sentiments of the middle 
ages just as Chaucer's stories do; they are just as 
good stories, in one or two cases they are the same. 
Only they are told, with one or two exceptions, with- 
out wit, or charm, or poetic feeling, or melody. We 
realize, as with a sense of relief we put Gower's 
poetry aside, that he has taught us one thing: genius 
may and does owe a great deal to inheritance and 
environment ; its mode of working and the material 



CONTEMPORARIES OF CHAUCER 133 



which it handles, much even in its spirit, may be 
derived from its age ; yet in its essence it is no prod- 
uct of present or past, but a heaven-sent mystery. 

It is only fair to the moral Gower, as Chaucer 
called him, to say that the " Confessio Amantis " was 
the work of his old age. He was perhaps older than 
Chaucer by ten years, but his long poem was not 
written till 1393, long after the "Canterbury Tales" 
had been started. Gower had written two other long 
poems before this : the " Vox Clamantis" in Latin, 
and the "Speculum Meditantis" in French. Pos- 
sibly he did not have sense or spirit to trust himself 
to the new, rude, uncourtly tongue till Chaucer 
showed him the way. He is the last English author 
of importance, however, to compose in French ; and 
from now on we can, with one or two exceptions, 
ignore books by English authors written in any lan- 
guage but their own. 

II. Langland and the Social Revolt 

It is strange to think how many things are always 
going on at once in the world, and how differently 
life may look at the same time to different people. 
Chaucer saw an England in good spirits, an Eng- 
land of holiday mood, full of romance and color ; and 
that England really existed. But another England 
existed by its side, throbbing with discontent and 
with sorrow ; and this second England also had its 
poet. He was a man of a great soul, this poet. He 
wrote only one long poem, but it was worthy to be 
the work of a lifetime, and he rewrote it with utmost 
care three times. He called it, " The Vision of Will- 



134 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



iam Concerning Piers the Ploughman " ; his own 
name we suppose, though we cannot be quite certain, 
to have been William Langland. 
wuiiam Langland was not so great a genius as Chaucer, 
about a i332 an( ^ P eo pl e do not remember him so well to-day. 
toa-bout The world likes to remember happy people best, and 
Langland was not very happy. Besides, he threw in 
his lot with the poor, and did not have much to do 
with the gay new French fashions in literature. He 
chose for his verse the old alliterative swinging line, 
which recalls to us the cadence of Cynewulf. It is 
hard for us to catch music in this form of poetry 
or to understand how it pleased people's ears ; but 
its revival shows what a hold it had on the love of 
Englishmen. To-day, we cannot read most of Lang- 
land for verse-beauty. He is dull indeed who does 
not read Chaucer with pleasure ; but one has to love 
the middle ages and be much in earnest about living, 
to enjoy Langland. Nevertheless, if any reader has 
patience to linger with him and puzzle out his mean- 
ing, his sad spirit comes and dwells beside that reader, 
and becomes a brother beloved. 

We said at the beginning of the first chapter of 
this part that the most representative and important 
literature of the middle ages was inspired by one of 
the two great forces, — Catholicism and Chivalry. 
But we said also that far in the distance could be 
discerned another figure beside that of Knight and 
Monk, the figure of the Laborer, and that his time 
for speech would come. It has come now ; and the 
poet of the Laborer is William Langland. 

We do not know nearly as much about Langland's 
personality as we do about Chaucer's. He was not 



CONTEMPORARIES OF CHAUCER 135 



attached to the court, a gentleman of importance, 
whose name is found on public records; he was a 
poor, lank, obscure man, — Long Will, they called 
him. He used to wander over the Malvern Hills 
sometimes, where the air is high and pure, and fall 
a-dreaming there ; but for the most part he lived in 
London, with his wife Kitty and his daughter Kalote. 
We must not think of London in the fourteenth cen- 
tury as if it were the portentous smoky city of our 
own day : we must, — 

" Forget six counties overhung with smoke, 
Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke, 
Forget the spreading of the hideous town ; 
Think rather of the pack-horse on the down, 
And dream of London small and white and clean, 
The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green, 

While near the thronged wharf Geoffrey Chaucer's pen 
Moves over bills of lading.'' 1 

But, quiet as the place would seem to. us, it was 
already the centre of England. It witnessed already 
fierce pitiful contrasts between poverty and wealth. 
Here Langland, who was a tonsured clerk apparently 
in minor orders in the Church, used to pick up his 
living by singing dirges for the repose of souls. 
Here, if we may trust his own story, he even at times 
had to beg his dinner, so poor was he. But he did 
not try to ingratiate himself with the rich ; perhaps 
he was not very polite to them. He says that he was 
loath to reverence lords or ladies when he met them 
on the street, or to say " God save you " to sergeants 
dressed in fur with pendants of silver ; and that, 
1 William Morris : Prologue to the " Earthly Paradise." 



136 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



because of these glum manners of his, people often 
took him for a fool. We can see him slipping 
through the gay thoroughfares, his gaunt figure 
slightly bent, a frown upon his brow. He was a 
very different person from the pleasant, sunny 
Chaucer. He was a social malcontent ; there have 
been plenty of others since his day. And Langland, 
like many of the same class, had a tender heart of 
his own when it was rightly appealed to. 
Social He had some reason for the mixture of sorrow and 

perplexity with which he looked out on the world. 
For the England which he saw with those honest 
eyes of his was not Merrie England ; it was a land 
Condition devastated by war and pestilence. The last part of 
laboring the fourteenth century was a time of great distress 
classes. f or Coring classes in England. The long Hun- 
dred Years' War with France was going on all this 
time, and the court and the gentry were absorbed in 
turn by a festive, brilliantly ordered life at home, and 
by the great foreign campaigns. But the common 
people had other things to think of. It was they 
who fell in greatest numbers on the battlefield ; it was 
they who were swept off the face of the earth in yet 
greater numbers by the horrible scourge of the Black 
Death. And then, when they were just recovering 
themselves, would come severe laws, and taxes which 
seemed to them most cruel and unjust. The burden 
of such laws pressed heaviest upon the agricultural 
laborers in the country, for the workers in the towns 
were partially protected by the strong mediaeval trade 
guilds. It was a dreary life for the most part, that 
of the workers in the fields. They toiled hard, 
they knew cold and hunger. " Alas," says Langland, 



CONTEMPORARIES OF CHAUCER 137 



with an outburst of indignant pity, "alas for the 
poor folk in cots, charged with children and chief 
lords' rents ! What they may spare from their spin- 
ning, they spend in house-hire, and in milk and meal 
to make messes of porridge to satisfy their children 
who are greedy for food. And they themselves 
also suffer much hunger, and woe in the winter -time 
with waking o' nights to rock the cradle. They card 
and comb and patch and wash, they rub and peel 
rushes, so that it is ruth to read or to show in rhyme 
the woe of these women who dwell in cots." And 
in many another passage he gives us pictures equally 
sad and equally convincing. 

It was no wonder that during the fourteenth cen- Spirit of 

revolt 

tury the spirit of revolt was abroad. This spirit religious 
took two directions; it was social, it was religious. andsocia 
Anger against the Church which preached poverty 
and practised luxury, anger against the privileged 
classes : these two impassioned impulses found omi- 
nous expression before the century closed. The 
religious rebellion expressed itself in the Lollard 
movement inaugurated by Wyclif ; the social, in the 
Peasant Revolt, which took place in 1381, some 
years after Langland had given to the world the 
second version of his poem. These matters belong 
to history and are best studied there ; but the life of 
the nation and its literature are bound together, and 
it is in the prose of Wyclif and the poetry of Lang- 
land that we can best catch the spirit which drove 
men to these movements of protest. 

There is a beautiful book by a man who has carried 
on in our own day the literature of social revolt 
which Langland began in the fourteenth century : 



138 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



William Morris. It is called " The Dream of John 
Ball," and it tells with much vividness part of the 
story of the great uprising of the- peasants. The 
spirit of that uprising was well expressed in the 
rough couplet which at this time began to run about 
from mouth to mouth : — 

" When Adam delved and Eve span, 
Where was then the gentleman ? " 

The queried the couplet. It was the spirit of democracy 

Revolt, which spoke, over four hundred years before democ- 
racy was consciously realized by the Christian world. 
There is no doubt that Langland's poem was one of 
the powerful instruments in stirring up this new 
spirit ; his Piers (or Peter) the Ploughman became 
a symbolical figure, the typical hero of the laboring 
man. 

And yet Langland himself was not a revolutionist. 
He was a thinker and dreamer. His great Visions 
are full of wistful passion, of spiritual insight. They 
wander far and wide, surveying the manifold woes 
and puzzles of life ; but always they come back to 
one central thought, and a true and beautiful thought 
it is : — 

" For there that Love is leader, ne lacked never grace." 

Langland's heart went out most earnestly to the 
vision or allegory from which he named his whole 
The aiie- poem : the Story of the Ploughman. And a strange 
the y ° f story it is, different from anything else which we 
man gh " mee ^ in the middle ages ; a sort of " Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress" of the fourteenth century. We can compare it 
point by point with Bunyan's immortal dream ; only, 



CONTEMPORARIES OF CHAUCER 139 



we shall find one great difference, — that while Bun- 
yan's hero is occupied with saving his own soul, 
Langland's is occupied with leading toward salva- 
tion the whole of society. 

Langland has his pilgrimage as well as Chaucer, 
and it is interesting to put the two together. Lang- 
land opens his eyes when his vision begins on a field 
full of folk. There are more than there were at the 
Tabard on that memorable April morning. There 
are ploughmen who played full seldom ; hermits 
and jugglers and merchants ; beggars enough and 
pilgrims and friars, and bakers and brewers, and 
butchers and masons and miners, and cooks going 
about crying : " Hot pies, hot ! Good pigs and 
geese : go dine, go dine ! " All the middle ages 
are there. And there is one named Repentance, 
preaching to them all a heart-searching sermon. So 
well does he preach that they are converted, every 
one ; yes, even the Seven Deadly Sins, whom Lang- 
land describes so vividly that we see them as clearly 
as we do Chaucer's Wife of Bath. The whole assem- 
bly falls on its knees and takes a vow, as most people 
did then when smitten in conscience ; they will go 
on pilgrimage. 

But it is a strange pilgrimage that they under- 
take ! A pilgrimage to Truth. Reason recommends 
it to them : — 

u Ye that seek Saint James and saints of Rome 
Seek Saint Truth, for he may save you all." 

"I will seek Truth first ere I see Rome," says one 
of the penitents. So off they all start, and in such a 
hurry that the Pardoner, a personage whom Lang- 



140 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



land evidently despises as much as Chaucer, is left 
behind. 

What a company it is ! Very different from 
Chaucer's pilgrims, ambling along good roads on 
their comfortable horses, chatting and laughing in 
the April sunlight. They are dead in earnest, Lang- 
land's people. They " bluster forth as beasts over 
banks and hills, till late it was and long," for there 
was no wight so wise as to know the way to Truth, 
and there appeared to be no travelled road leading 
to his shrine. Nor could they find any wayfarer to 
give them direction. Even a very wise and travelled 
pilgrim whom they meet, whose hat is plastered all 
over with holy images, treats them with great scorn 
when they ask him the way to St. Truth. He never 
heard of anybody who wanted to go to that shrine 
before, he says. 

So the pilgrims are terribly discouraged, and stop 
in pure bewilderment. Then all of a sudden some 
one pipes up, and they look around and see that it is 
a very common, vigorous-looking man, — Peter the 
Ploughman. " Why, do you want to learn the way 
to Truth ? " says Peter. " Well, I can tell you. I am 
an intimate friend of Truth's. I have been his ser- 
vant these fifty winters. I dig and I delve, I sow 
and I thresh, I understand tinker's craft and tailor's 
craft, I can do all Truth tells me to. He is the 
promptest payer poor men know. I can tell you the 
way to get to him." 

The pilgrims are delighted and want to pay him 
for his instructions. But Piers will not take a 
farthing. Truth would love him the less a long time 
thereafter, he says, if he did. And he tells them 



CONTEMPORARIES OF CHAUCER 141 



exactly how to go. But alas ! It is a very compli- 
cated journey. They are all sure that they cannot 
find the way alone, and they beg Piers to serve as 
guide. But this, he says, he cannot do, because he 
hasn't ploughed his half -acre ; Truth would not 
like him to leave his work undone ; besides, if he did, 
people would starve. He has a great deal of honest 
common sense, has Piers. 

It is a perplexing situation, but the pilgrims find 
a way out. They all exclaim, — it is a fine lady 
to whom the thought seems first to come, and a 
knight seconds her, — that they will turn to and 
help Piers do his work quickly, and then he will 
be free and they can set off together. This pleases 
Piers very much. He receives authority over all 
the pilgrims, and sets them to work, giving them 
the sort of things to do for which they are best 
fitted. This part of Langland's poem is profoundly 
original. No one before him had thought of the 
working-man, — for Piers, as is seen from his mani- 
fold occupations, is more than merely a ploughman, 
— as possible leader of the industrial community, 
exalted over knights and professional men and the 
Church itself. 

Piers makes a very good governor, though he has a 
great deal of difficulty with some lazy people who 
won't work, but want to sit on the fence all day with 
their legs hanging and sing " How ! trolli lolli ! " He 
has to call in Hunger to help him before he can settle 
them. As a rule, however, the pilgrims seem to enjoy 
their work very much. We do not hear any more 
about the pilgrimage. Probably when they all get 
profitably busy in carrying on with honest intent the 



142 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



necessary labor of the world, they find that the shrine 
of Truth is not in a very far country. Indeed, Piers 
himself has promised them that the end of their quest 
will be that each will find truth sitting in his heart 
in a chain of charity, as if he were a child. 

But the story of the Ploughman does not stop 
there. Langland sees in his vision that God the 
Father sends Piers a bull of pardon, by which he 
becomes the spiritual, as he is already the economic, 
head of the community. Presently a priest comes 
along, who objects to this, wants to see the Bull 
which forms Piers' credentials. And behold ! it is 
no formal pardon at all, but only a promise that, if 
men will do well, God will save their souls. The 
priest is not at all satisfied with this, and he begins 
to reason and to quarrel noisily, and the Dreamer 
wakes. 

Since, however, the pardon has been promised to 
those who " do well," it is very important to find out 
just what doing well involves ; and so Langland falls 
asleep again, and dreams many visions bearing on 
this point. It takes him a great while to reach his 
end, and he passes almost every phase of life in 
musing review : but he learns to understand at last 
the three stages of the perfect life. To Do Well is 
to do what law teaches ; to be true of one's tongue, 
and earn one's livelihood by the labor of one's 
hands ; to be trusty, and to grieve no man. Beyond 
this is another ideal, which to practise is to Do Bet- 
ter, and this is, to love both friend and foe, to be 
humble and courteous, to lend readily, and to resist 
not evil. Beyond this is the highest ideal of all, and 
that is to Do Best. Only in the Life of the Ascended 



CONTEMPORARIES OF CHAUCER 143 



Christ and of His Church does Langland find a full 
example of this great thought. Do Best is no longer 
passive ; to Do Best is to go forth into the world, to 
heal and to redeem ; to cast down the wicked, to 
have authority in judgment. 

Those cantos of the poem which give a poetic study 
of the Passion of Christ, are the most beautiful and 
impassioned that Langland ever wrote. One in par- 
ticular is a very great poem : it is the eighteenth 
canto in the B text, and describes with wonderful 
fervor a scene on which the middle ages loved to 
dwell : Christ's Harrowing of Hell, or his descent 
into Hades on the evening of Good Friday, and his 
release of the spirits of the just held in prison there. 
These cantos reintroduce, in a most interesting way, 
the figure of the Ploughman. He is no longer 
merely the honest laborer, the only person who knows 
the Secrets of Truth in a bewildered generation : 
nor is he merely the industrial head of the commun- 
ity, startling as may seem to us this exaltation of the 
working-man. His figure becomes surrounded with 
a mystic radiance ; the poet speaks of him, not with 
the hearty fellowship of earlier cantos, but with 
reverence, almost with awe. Peter the Ploughman 
is manifest to us as the representative on earth of 
Christ Himself : and we see him coming in with a 
cross before the common people ; with the marks of 
the Passion upon him : Christ the Conqueror, Christ 
arisen. 

So begins the literature of social revolt in Eng- 
land, rooted deep in the heart of Christianity. 
Through many and devious phases has it passed 
since then ; many more, perhaps, await it. But still 



144 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



Langland's earnest spirit of love toward God and 
man, of reverence for poverty and faithful toil, holds 
for many seekers a golden key to some of our 
gravest problems. 

III. Wyclif and the Religious Revolt 

The religious and the social awakening went on 
together ; indeed, the spirit of religious revolt was 
the first abroad in the land. It was no wonder that 
this spirit arose ; for the Church, once the protector 
of the poor and the witness to unworldliness, had 
allowed abuses and corruptions unnumbered to defile 
her purity. In particular, the venal and degraded 
lives of many of the begging friars, Franciscans and 
Dominicans, were a hideous travesty upon the ideals 
of St. Dominic and St. Francis. Charity once walked 
the earth, to be sure, in a friar's robe, says Langland, 
but that was long ago in St. Francis's time. What 
his order had become we may best learn by the 
scathing studies in Chaucer of the Friar and the Par- 
doner. Langland's invective is equally scornful, 
more indignant. Against such degradation of the 
Gospel the native Anglo-Saxon integrity and hon- 
esty arose in vehement protest. That strain of sim- 
ple Christianity, which as we saw was strong in the 
British isles before the work of Augustine and Wil- 
frid emphasized and established Italian and papal 
dominion there, reasserted itself after many cen- 
turies. The man through whom it spoke was 
Wyclif, a sturdy Saxon, if one ever breathed. 

It is not for a history of literature to trace the 
early phases of the Reformation in England. We 



CONTEMPORARIES OF CHAUCER 145 



consider Wyclif here, as the father of English John 
prose. He is like many other authors whom we about 
shall meet, whose greatness is chiefly in the world 1324-1 
of action and thought, who hold only a secondary 
importance from the point of view of art, yet even 
on that ground cannot be wholly ignored. Wyclif 
was a great thinker, doctor of divinity, and master 
of an Oxford college. He was the last of the medi- 
eval schoolmen. And he was honored and famous 
long before the impulse of reform seized him. He 
wrote Latin treatises at this time in his career ; but 
it was not long before he awoke to the keen recog- 
nition of the needs of the common people, and, turn- 
ing to them, began to address to them homilies, 
sermons, tracts, in their own mother tongue. Very 
likely the remarkable influence of Langland's poem, 
in its early version, suggested to him that he write in 
English. He trained up followers to do likewise ; 
his " poor priests " tramped the country, preaching 
after a new fashion the simplest gospel truths ; 
appealing, not to imagination, as the Catholic lit- 
erature of the middle ages had largely done, but ex- 
clusively to reason and conscience. Much of this 
Wyclifite literature has come down to us. It has 
little grace or harmony of style ; on the other hand, 
it is written in a prose that goes straight to the 
mark, nervous, crisp, telling, and clear. We feel the 
genius of Wyclif in it all ; but we feel that genius 
yet more in another work of his, for which the Eng- 
lish-speaking race owes him undying gratitude. For 
Wyclif it was who first had the Bible translated into 
English, doing much of the work himself, and who 
thereby put into the hands of the nation the book 



146 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



which, apart from its higher influences, did more than 
any other one thing to create for centuries our prose 
style. When we think that the laity had up to this 
time derived their knowledge of the Bible from pic- 
tures, images, Church ceremonies, and miracle plays, 
we can see how marvellous was the gift which Wyc- 
lif gave them in the simple gospel. 

The language of Wyclif's translation is strange to 
us to-day. He translated from the Vulgate, or 
Latin version of St. Jerome, and his work is not 
the foundation of our Authorized Version. That 
came later. Meanwhile, these early, stammering, 
awkward versions of what we know so well have a 
touching charm and a grave interest. Here is Wyc- 
lif's version of the Beatitudes : — 

" Blessid be pore men in spirit : for the kyngdom of 
hevene is herun. Blessid ben mylde men: for thei 
schulen weelde the erthe. Blessid ben thei that mournen : 
for they schal be coumf ortid. Blessid be thei that hung- 
ren and thirsten rigtwisnesse : for thei schal be f ulfillid. 
Blessid ben merciful men : for thei schal gete mercy. 
Blessid ben thei that ben of clene herte : for thei schulen 
se God. Blessid ben pesible men: for thei schulen be 
clepid goddis children. Blessid ben thei that suffren per- 
secucioun for rightwisnesse : for the kyngdom of hevene 
is hern." 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Cassell publishes a cheap edition of Mandeville, with mod- 
ernized spelling. Gollancz has a charming edition, with trans- 
lation, of the " Pearl." " Sir Gawaine and the Greene Knight," 
translated by Jessie Weston, is in a dainty volume published 
by David Nutt. Gower's Confessio Amantis is most accessible 
in the Carisbrooke Library, edited by Henry Morley. 



CONTEMPORARIES OF CHAUCER 147 



Skeat's edition of Langland. 2 vols. Also, first seven passus, 
Clarendon Press. Translation, of same. Kate Waeeen. 

J. JusseranDj Piers Plowman, A Contribution to the His- 
tory of English Mysticism. V. D. Scudder, Social Ideals in 
English Letters, Part I. Ch. I. Elizabeth Dertng Hanscom, 
The Argument of the Vision of Piers Plowman, Modern Lan- 
guage Association, Yol. IX. 

Greex. History of the English People, Chap. VI, Sec. IV. 
Teaill. Social England, Vol. II. Jessop, The Coming of the 
Friars. Cutis, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages ; 
Parish Priests and their People in the Middle Ages in England. 
Welliam Morris. The Dream of John Ball. 

Bosworth and Warixg, Translations of the Gospels, in- 
cludes Wyclifs. English Works of Wyclif, ed. by T. Arxold. 
By J. D. Matthew-Penxesgtoist, J. Wyclif, his Life, Time, 
and Teaching. Beedexsieg, John Wiclif, Patriot and Re- 
former. G. V. Lechler, John Wyclif, and his English 
Precursors. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

It is not only entertaining, but profitable, to have stories 
told from Mandeyille in class, for various inferences can be 
drawn concerning the state of knowledge in the middle ages, 
and concerning mediaeval habits of thought. Ruskin alludes to 
Mandeville in a charming way in the " Ethics of the Dust." 
Goliancz's edition of the " Pearl M is a pleasure to handle, and 
portions of the poem should be read. The teacher might here 
lecture on the Elegy as an art-form, or suggest comparisons with 
other great elegies. Any one would enjoy owning and reading 
Jessie Weston's pretty edition of " Sir Gawaine." Gower may 
be taken by the young on trust. 

Young students can read Langland only in short extracts or 
in translation. Enough work, however, to give an idea of his 
flavor, his racy vocabulary, his quaint use of symbolism and 
figure, his pathos and moral earnestness, may well be done. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

This is a point where interesting lectures may profitably be 
given. The social conditions of England may be pictured. 
Langland may be compared in his social teaching with Words- 



148 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



worth, with Carlyle, with Ruskin, with Tolstoi. His pictures of 
contemporary life may be made vivid to the class, and his sym- 
bolic impersonations, like his figures of the seven deadly sins, 
may be compared with others of the same general type, as 
Spenser's in the first book of the " Faerie Queene," Giotto's in 
the Arena chapel at Padua. A lecture on St. Francis, and the 
mediaeval idea of the relation of poverty to Christianity, would 
not be out of place, and would be helpful in understanding the 
influence of Wyclif. A lecture on Wyclif is needed to expand 
the slight treatment of the text, and the teacher might spend 
an hour in reading to the class from Wyclif's Bible, while the 
students compared his rendering with the Authorized Version. 



CHAPTER VI 



THE MEDIAEVAL DRAMA 

THE middle ages had its epics, its lyrics, its prose ; 
it had also its drama. No other drama ever 
held the public so long. For nearly five centuries 
it was in its rude way a living force ; only three 
centuries separate us from Shakespeare. 

The mediaeval drama is not, in the strict sense, 
literature ; for it was never meant to be read, and we 
must not turn to it for literary values. Neverthe- 
less, it is of great importance, for it prepared the 
way for Shakespeare. It trained the dramatic in- 
stincts of the people from whom was to spring the 
Elizabethan drama, and the Elizabethan drama is the 
greatest imaginative self-expression of the modern 
world. 

No drama was ever so audacious in subject as this; Biblical 
for it began with the creation of the world, and only t?on Ua ' 
paused with the day of judgment. All heaven and 
all hell it brought upon the scene : angels and 
devils ; the Lord of Life Himself, and the lord of 
sin. Between these two mighty opposing forces 
it placed the greatest of all protagonists, — Man. 
Mediaeval drama was part of mediaeval religion. 
There are, to be sure, traces of secular drama in 
the middle ages, but they are comparatively insig- 
nificant ; and, though in Europe many plays were 
founded on the lives of saints, we are not sur- 

149 



150 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



prised to find that the drama of the race which had 
produced Csedmon and Cynewulf was almost wholly 
Biblical. 

Develop- The dramatization of the great story was indeed 
sure to come among people who persistently visual- 
ized all the mysteries of faith. It grew, this religious 
drama, in a way that seems strange to us moderns. 
There were no theatres in the middle ages. The 
earliest theatre was a church, and not only a church, 
but the stage or scene was the holy place around the 
high altar. Here, on the great feast days, white- 
robed choristers representing the Christmas shep- 
herds or the Easter angels detached themselves from 
the rest of the choir or clergy, and, with special 
chants, with gestures, later with more pronounced 
action, made visible to worshippers who could under- 
stand religion best through their eyes, the central 
facts of the Gospel story. In time this nascent drama 
moved from choir to nave, became more and more 
separate from the religious service, and gained new, 
independent subjects. A great step was taken when 
it left the church and passed into the open air of 
the square outside; a greater, perhaps, when it defi- 
nitely abandoned Latin, and talked in the tongue 
understood of the people. In time, secular actors 
took the place of the clergy ; and finally, the drama, 
fully developed, took to wandering at will through 
the town, the fullest expression we have of the 
rude, childish, generous heart of the mediaeval 
people. 

Character. For the people created, possessed, acted, this mam- 
moth, anonymous drama. Different acts in the 
story came to be assigned to the different trade 



THE MEDIAEVAL DRAMA 



151 



guilds, — the Fishermen, for instance, taking the 
Flood, the Bakers the Last Supper. Each owned a 
car, or travelling stage, devoted to this act, and 
prided itself on its full equipment in properties and 
actors. The car was built in tiers, of which the 
lower could serve as green-room, or as a second stage 
to represent the earth, while the upper was some- 
times reserved for heaven. Whatever the arrange- 
ment, a great feature of the mediaeval stage was a 
monstrous pair of jaws, sometimes worked to open 
and shut, which represented that spot so real to the 
mediaeval fancy, — the jaws of hell, ever yawning to 
receive unhappy mortals. On festival days, espe- 
cially the Feast of Corpus Christi in midsummer, 
these lumbering cars would roll one after another 
through the thronged holiday streets, and at each 
pause would be enacted the pageant of the guild. 
All through a summer's day, through several days 
sometimes, these pageants would pass by, and the 
familiar streets would be to the populace no longer 
the scene of petty everyday life, but of the Drama 
of Redemption. 

Nothing daunted the audacity of the mediaeval 
playwrights. The Deity Himself they put upon the 
stage, with primitive simplicity which appears strange 
to our modern mind. " Paid for a pair of gloves for 
God, twopence," is an item in an old account of the 
theatre. The first act of the drama was the Fall of 
Lucifer. The arch-fiend and his attendant angels 
tumbled literally from the upper stage into hell- 
mouth, whence they emerged, sprightly if hideous 
demons. Then came the pageant of the Creation of 
Man, followed by successive scenes from the Scrip- 



152 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



ture story : Cain and Abel, the Flood, the Sacrifice 
of Isaac, the long row of Prophets foretelling the 
birth of the Saviour. More intense and eager would 
grow the feelings of the audience as the pageants of 
the New Testament drew near. How tenderly they 
would follow the rude grace and touching childish- 
ness with which were depicted all the exquisite 
stories of the birth and infancy of the Lord ! With 
what awed and aching hearts would they watch the 
pageants which set forth with unsparing, piteous 
detail the scenes of His Passion and Death ! Then 
came the Harrowing of Hell, full of dramatic action 
between the wrathful devils, routed in the moment of 
their triumph, and the Christ, victorious through His 
very agony. The Resurrection and Ascension thrilled 
watchful hearts with adoring joy ; and from Whit- 
sunday the drama advanced rapidly to the Day of 
Judgment, where not all the primitive setting could 
lessen the awe with which simple souls heard pro- 
nounced the words of doom and mercy ; and saw the 
souls of the blessed in their little white coats ris- 
ing into heavenly glory, and of the others, dark with 
agony, seized and dragged into the fiery mouth of 
hell by gibbering, horny devils. 
Values. As far as poetic values go, this old drama is rude 
in the extreme. The verse is usually mere doggerel ; 
there is little idea of dramatic movement or arrange- 
ment. Yet it has a certain power and pathos, de- 
rived, if from nothing else, from the majesty of the 
theme. It is very touching, too, to see how the old 
playwrights conceived of the Holy Story as if it had 
happened in Lancashire or London. They do not 
hesitate to introduce into the sacred tale the rough 



THE MEDIAEVAL DRAMA 



153 



manners, the characters, the humor, which they knew 
in daily life. In the Old Testament plays, the pag- 
eant of the Flood was particularly devoted to this 
kind of humor, and Noah's Wife, a character "ben 
trovata," was own cousin to Chaucer's Wife of Bath. 
She wouldn't go into the ark. She didn't believe it 
was going to rain. She was angry because Noah had 
not told her what he was doing in all the hundred 
years he had been building that boat. The " Merry 
Wives of Windsor," we may surmise, come from her 
tribe. There is less broad farce, but equal humor, 
in the charming, absurd, Nativity Plays. Here hon- 
est English rustics, who like Ely's ale, and bear such 
names as Tudde, Hancken, and Trowle, indulge in 
jokes, quarrels, horse-play ; grumble at the weather, 
— " Whew ! Golly ! How cold it is ! " exclaims one ; 
are not at all awed by the Gloria-angel, whom they 
fall to mimicking ; but do lay aside their roughness, 
filled with tender adoration, at the sight of the Holy 
Child. Very touching in realism are the gifts these 
shepherds bring him : a brooch with a tin bell, for 
instance ; two cobble nuts on a ribbon ; a horn spoon 
that will hold forty pease ; and the like. In one set 
of plays, little shepherd boys follow their masters, 
and give, they too, of their substance. 

" To pull down apples, pears, and plums, 
Old Joseph shall not need to hurt his thumbs : 
I give thee here my nut-hook/' 

says one little lad. There is much real beauty, also, 
about the other scenes in the Nativity Pageants, 
notably those where speaks the Mother-Maid, gazing 



154 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



in brooding worship, blended with gentle mother 
love, upon her mysterious Child : — 

" Son, as I am simple subject of thine, 
Vouchsafe, sweet son, I pray thee, 
That I may take thee in these arms of mine, 
And in this poor weed to array thee. 

Grant me this bliss, 
As I am thy mother chosen to be 

In soothfastness." 

That Joseph swears by the Trinity and Herod by 
Mahomet does not seem, however absurd the anach- 
ronism, to alter the essential truth of human feeling 
in the naive old dramas. 

When the dramas draw near to the more solemn 
or tragic portions of the story, however, their fail- 
ure is more obvious ; and, despite an occasional touch 
of beauty, the puerility and feebleness become so 
great that sympathy almost ceases. But we must 
look, not at execution, but at conception, if we would 
realize the power of this drama in the poetic educa- 
tion of the English race. And the conception has a 
titanic grandeur which assuredly prepared the way 
for the greater art of the future. " Elizabethan 
tragedy, with the careless strength of a young giant, 
shook off the troublesome conventions of the stage, 
— unity of time, unity of place. Was not England 
reared upon dramas that embraced heaven, earth, and 
hell within their limits, that encompassed all of time 
that had been and yet should be ? " 1 Not only in 
breadth of scope, but in rough truth to human life, 
in a frank realism that alternated with conventional 

iRatherine Lee Bates, "The English Eeligious Drama," p. 183. 



THE MEDLEY AL DRAMA 155 



types, in the blending of tragedy and comedy, the 
mediaeval stage prepared the way for Shakespeare. 
Moreover, these old plays developed an insatiable 
desire for dramatic representation. " They made 
England a nation of actors, a nation of theatre- 
lovers, a nation of deep dramatic cravings, who 
would be content with no such learned and elegant 
trifling as amused the court and university, but cried 
out for range, for earnestness, for life. To follow 
the history of feudal England through a series of 
plays was little for those whose grandsires had fol- 
lowed the history of mankind. Londoners had 
looked already on a more heart-moving tragedy 
than 'Hamlet.'" 1 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

J. M. Manly, Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama. 
(Athenaeum Press Series.) A. W. Pollard, English Miracle 
Plays, Moralities and Interludes. K. L. Bates, The English 
Religious Drama. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

It will probably be found best for students to read only a 
few selected passages here and there from tins rough old drama. 
But certain of the plays have been presented lately by student 
companies, with as close a reproduction as possible of the 
mediaeval setting, to the delectation alike of actors and audi- 
ence. The shepherd plays and some of the pageants of the 
Old Testament lend themselves particularly well to such repre- 
sentation. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

There is material here for a series of valuable lectures. The 
dramas could be considered and described by cycles, or the 
treatment could be topical, discussing the humorous elements 
in the mediaeval drama, the poetry, the dramatic structure, the 
illustrations of contemporary life, the relation to the ritual of 
the Church, etc. 

1 Ibid., p. 200. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 

I. Chaucerian Imitators 

IN some countries there are seasons when autumn 
and spring meet, so that the year is dying and be- 
ing born at the same time. Something like this 
happened in England in the fifteenth century. To 
all outward seeming, that century looked like a period 
of death and sterile decay ; but, before its end, little 
seeds that were to mean a wondrously fair growth 
were sprouting, unsuspected by men, beneath the 
surface. 

So far as actual achievement above ground goes, 
however, our eyes rest on decay alone. Almost noth- 
ing original was produced in English letters. People 
had been much, and rightly, impressed with Chaucer ; 
and they took to imitating him, and went on doing 
so till their works became the shadow of a shadow. 
Chaucer looked straight at life ; but they looked at 
Chaucer, and their fate is a warning. They did not 
catch his freshness and humor and keen observant 
power ; they copied his more conventional aspects, 
his mannerisms, and allegories. These things had 
been a real expression of men's spirit once. They 
were fading away when Chaucer revived them, and 
when his imitators kept them up they grew fainter 
and fainter. 

156 



THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 



157 



It must not be supposed that there was no merit 
in any of these followers of Chaucer ; if there were 
nothing greater awaiting us, we might find pleasure 
in lingering with them ; but it is better to learn 
about supremely great things first, and then to 
return, if one will, to the second-rate. 

Lydgate, Hoccleve, and Hawes were the chief of John 
these Chaucerian imitators. Lydgate was a good- aboufilVo 
tempered, pleasant monk, quite in earnest about his ^ bout 
religion, but without what one would call a spiritual 
vocation. He may have been a little like Browning's 
" Fra Lippo Lippi " ; but he solaced himself for his 
monastic confinement with writing, not with paint- 
ing, and he did not have so much genius as Lippi. 
He must have enjoyed his work, though, for he kept 
on writing hymns and ballads and fables and saint 
legends and telling old stories over again, till he had 
produced an average of five thousand verses a year, 
and left behind him over a hundred and thirty thou- 
sand. Virgil, M. Jusserand reminds us with a sigh, 
wrote in all his life only fourteen thousand. His 
work is not disagreeable. His " Troy Book," his 
" Story of Thebes," his " Fall of Princes," are well 
enough told ; but there is nothing vital in them, 
nothing significant. One feels that if he could only 
once get down to the truth of his own nature, he 
might do something really fine. But this he never 
took the trouble to do. The best way perhaps to 
appreciate Lydgate is to read Hoccleve ; for Hoc- Thomas 
cleve was even duller than Lydgate. The best thing ^°out eVe ' 
about him was that he loved Chaucer, whose verse ^out 69 10 
he knew well. His verse is very didactic, rather 145 °- 
mournful, and there was a great deal of it. 



158 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



So poetry went on, sterile, imitative, and depress- 
ing. Meanwhile, not much original work was doing 
in prose. The most important prose writer in Eng- 
lish was a curious man, Reginald Pecock. He at- 
tacked Wyclifism and defended the Church, but 
with such strange weapons that the Church resented 
his championship, and forced him to burn his books 
and to make recantation. Pecock was an interesting 
and original person ; the man whom all parties 
dread and discard usually is. 

II. Scotch Literature 

But to find anything in literature worth lingering 
over, one must travel away from weary and battle- 
beset England, and take refuge in the Kingdom of 
the North. Scotland had been silent all this time ; 
only, in the fourteenth century, Barbour's " Bruce " 
had sung of the national conflict against England, 
and as the fifteenth century wore on some other 
patriotic poetry was produced. But now a number 
of voices arise. They sing, they scold, they laugh ; 
there is life in them, and real feeling. 
James I, The first of these is the voice of a king, a real king, 

1394-1437. 

who seems to belong in a story-book : James I, of Scot- 
land. It is a courtly voice ; it belongs to a lover, a sen- 
sitive, dreamy man of finest culture. He sings over 
again what had been imagined before him, but the won- 
der is that in his case it has all come true. He was in 
prison, like Palamon and Arcite in the " Knight's 
Tale," and he saw from his window another Emily 
walking in the garden : " Ah, sweet, are ye a worldly 
creature, or heavenly thing in guise of nature ? " he 



THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 



159 



exclaimed in marvelling admiration. She was an 
earthly creature ; her name, Jane Beaufort ; his love 
from that moment, later his loving wife : and the 
romantic story of his courtship and many other 
things he wrote in his poem, "The King's Quair," 
or "King's Book." The poem is modelled after 
Chaucer, but it has real experience in it ; it is 
written in a seven line stanza, which Chaucer had 
used, but which has taken since the name of rhyme 
royal, from the kingly author. Those who wish to 
know more of the tragic fate of this poet-king of 
romance may read it in Rossetti's noble ballad, 
"The King's Tragedy." 

The other Scottish poets are not so courtly. They Robert 
are real Scotchmen ; by and by they will have a ^^500)? 
younger brother named Burns. Robert Henryson, 
a schoolmaster, can write, to be sure, a Testament or 
Will for Chaucer's " Cresside," but he can also put 
iEsop's Fables into sparkling, spirited, entertaining 
verse. William Dunbar, a stronger soul than Hen- William 
ryson, had a wild, exuberant character. In the U60-1530. 
poems that he imitated from Chaucer, " The Thistle 
and the Rose," and "The Golden Targe," his pic- 
tures are so gorgeous and his colors so intense that 
we feel that the mark of decay is upon them. His 
lyrics are charged with a reckless, grotesque, sombre 
passion ; his " Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins " and 
his " Lament for the Makars " come, as all may feel, 
from the country of Tarn o' Shanter. Finally, in 
this roll of Scottish poets, advances a grave bishop, 
named Gavin Douglas. Scott knew him well, as Gavin 
" Marmion " can testify. Douglas translated the i^lSfe. 
" iEneid," and the work was important : but he di- 



160 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



vided the poem by little interludes of his own, describ- 
ing different aspects of nature, and these are more 
important still. We escape in them from the eternal 
May of the fourteenth century ; we no longer pluck 
roses and violets at the same season. We watch the 
wild storms of the Scottish winter, and the details of 
the bleak Scotch landscape are studied with loving 
care. 

It is Celtic, this revel of wild nature ; all this 
Scotch poetry is obviously of Celtic inspiration, — the 
passion for color that is in it, the humor, now sly, 
now coarse, the mingling of fun and horror which 
one gets in Dunbar, the curious power with which 
the supernatural note is struck. These things are 
seldom to be found in the poetry produced in Eng- 
land while the Norman influence was supreme and 
new. They serve to remind us of the' third great 
racial element which, before the sixteenth century is 
over, will fully have reasserted itself in English 
verse. 

III. Ballads 

We may as well pause here as at any other point 
to glance at something which has been going on for 
a long time — ballad-making. For printing is on 
the way, and ballads will cease. A ballad is a shy 
thing. If you try to catch and print it, it is likely 
to run away, and to leave a poor imitated concern in 
its place. Neither does it like to be asked questions 
about date or authorship or dry matters of that 
kind; it knows how to evade very sharp examina- 
tions on these lines. So we would better not press 
many inquiries about the ballads; but if we open 



THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 



161 



our eyes and ears almost any time from the four- 
teenth century to the eighteenth, if we slip away 
from the learned world and play with simple folk 
and listen, there the ballads we shall find. They 
seem to appear as mysteriously as fairies in a ring 
on midsummer eve. Where did they come from? 
Nobody knows, — though a good many are of Scotch 
descent, as one can tell from their garment of words 
and from their feelings. Only one thing is clear : 
they have no relation to the great literary tradition 
which we have been following from the twelfth cen- 
tury down. They spring straight from the hearts 
and lips of the common people ; no one can ascribe 
a ballad to a single author ; they were sung before 
they were said. While we read them, we are no 
longer in the graceful garden close nor in a feudal 
hall nor a cathedral ; we are in the good green wood, 
with Robin Hood and his merry men, or on the 
moorland country, under the wide sky where Percy 
and Douglas fight; or we stand with true Thomas 
at the spot where three roads meet : the road to 
heaven, the road to hell, — 

" And see ye not that bonny road, 

Which winds about the femie brae ? 
That is the road to fair Elfland, 

Where you and I this night maun gae." 

Down this last road, the road to Fairyland, again 
and again the ballads lead us. These ballads of 
superstition come mostly from Scotland, and the 
Celtic magic is in them. Then we have ballads of 
border warfare, of domestic story, of pure romance, 
and, above all, ballads of the wild outlaw life of the 



162 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



forest. Red blood runs through the veins of the 
people in the ballads. They move in no conven- 
tional world of vision, no pretty sphere of artificial 
sentiments and graceful manners. Their feet are 
on the solid earth, and the verse that tells of their 
loves and fates goes directly to the point : — 

" She turned her back unto the room, 
Her face unto the wa', 
And with a deep and heavy sigh 
Her heart it brak in twa." 

We are among primeval experiences, elemental pas- 
sions ; great is the relief with which we turn to 
them after the monotonous echoes of the lettered 
world in the fifteenth century. 

IV. The Decadence of the Middle Ages 

But why should the literature of the fifteenth 
century have been monotonous and sterile ? Why, 
after that brief glory of Chaucer's time, should 
silence fall ? In other countries, notably in Italy, 
the fifteenth century was an age of fervid creation, 
a climax in the imaginative power of the race. Why 
not in England ? 

Literature in England was apparently dying, 
because other things greater than literature were 
dying too. 

The Wars of the Roses were the last struggle 
of feudalism. Knighthood, from a grim or noble 
reality, was becoming a plaything. The great baro- 
nial houses were being swept away. The Peasant 
Revolt, to be sure, had been suppressed, and silent 



THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 163 



misery had once more fallen upon the poor ; yet, 
despite the seeming victory of the powers that were, 
the doom of the great feudal nobility had been pro- 
nounced. The whole fabric of mediaeval society was 
undermined and crumbling away. A new social 
order was approaching. 

The religious situation was tragic. In the first 
half of the century the Lollards had been ruthlessly 
suppressed, and their leader, Sir John Oldcastle, 
burnt to death. The Roman Catholic Church 
seemed wholly triumphant. But not the satire of 
Chaucer nor the appeals of Langland nor the in- 
vective of Wyclif had made her purify her abuses. 
The stress on imagination and feeling had been 
overwrought; superstitious excesses had crept in; 
religion, to a people that had lost all power to follow 
or understand the offices in Latin, and saw the 
unworthy lives of throngs of clergy, came to seem 
like an outworn sham. 

It must have been mournful to live in the fifteenth 
century, to feel the fabric of Church and State crum- 
bling around, yet to have no clear vision of better 
things to be. The mood of such a period is likely 
to be tragic, fevered, charged with gloom. Even 
the imitators of Chaucer have little of his bright 
spirit, but are addicted to melancholy wails. Ex- 
travagance and hysteria mark the last phases of the 
Ages of Romance. Costume becomes fantastically 
absurd. Gothic architecture is dying with the mid- 
dle ages, dying in extravagance on the Continent, in 
formalism in England. People feel a sense of pro- 
found discouragement and exhaustion. At times, 
reaction from conventionality produces eccentric, 



164 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



burlesque work, such as that of the curious poet, 
John Skelton. A fiercely satirical temper is met 
again and again ; the figure of Folly seems with her 
cap and bells to dominate the scene. A popular 
Dutch poem, translated by one Barclay, illustrates 
this temper ; the name of the poem is " The Ship of 
Fools," and it moves to a dreadful climax in the 
chapter entitled " The Universall or General Ship or 
Barge," where we see all nations helter-skelter, all 
sorts and conditions of men, the rich, the poor, labor- 
ers, merchants, soldiers, explorers, women, children, 
— all wearing the livery of Folly, and the aspect of 
the insane. 

Beside the form of Folly, another, yet more terri- 
ble, dominated the fifteenth century : this was the 
form of the Skeleton. The age w^as morbidly given 
to meditation on decay and death. "The Art and 
Craft to know well how to Die " was one of the first 
books issued from Caxton's press. Homilies on the 
Day of Judgment, on the Four Last Things, meet us 
at every turn. Natural enough, then, is the appear- 
ance of the skeleton, the physical symbol of the Lord 
of Terrors. He peeps as an ornament from the illu- 
minated borders of Books of Hours ; he is carved in 
the woodwork of the cathedrals ; frightful pageants 
are held in his honor, pageants of which the famous 
Danse Macabre gives the suggestion. Finally, the 
great artist Holbein sums up the spirit of the time 
in his famous woodcuts of The Dance of Death. 
The grim figure is everywhere present : leans out 
behind the preacher in the pulpit, touches on the 
shoulder the ploughman in the field, watches the 
miser count his gold, draws the child from the era- 



THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 165 



die, — is, unseen, the lord of the human race. There 
is in Holbein's pictures a solemn and eternal truth ; 
there is also a special truth for his own day and 
generation. This weird apparition had effectively 
touched the middle ages on the shoulder, and sum- 
moned them to their doom. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Good selections from the Chaucerian imitators are found in 
Ward's English Poets. Selections from the Scottish poets are 
in "Mediaeval Scottish Poetry," Glasgow, 1892. The " Romance 
of a King's Life," by J. J. Jusserand, tells vividly the story 
of James I, and Rossetti's ballad, the "King's Tragedy," is a 
noble version of his death. 

On ballads, the great authority is Child's monumental work, 
" English and Scottish Popular Ballads." A good short collec- 
tion, with admirable introduction, is that by Gummere, in the 
Athenaeum Press series. See, also, Percy's Reliques, J. Rit- 
son's Ancient Songs and Ballads, K. L. Bates's Ballad Book 
(Sibley & Ducker). 

For general character of period, socially and politically, see 
Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

In this period ballads are the most rewarding study for 
young students. Great ballads, like " Sir Patrick Spens," " The 
Wife of Usher's Well," portions of "Chevy Chase," and the 
Robin Hood ballads, may be learned and repeated in class. 

Special discussions may be held on outlaw life as shown in 
the ballads, on nature in the ballads, on the supernatural in the 
ballads, on the difference between the English and Scottish 
ballads ; also on the art of the ballads, their versification, their 
figures of speech, their narrative power, their range of feeling, 
etc. 

If Holbein's illustrations of The Dance of Death can be 
shown to the class, the last part of the chapter will be far more 
vivid. 



166 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

A lecture on the nature element in the Scottish poets would 
be quite worth while, recalling the class to a line of interest 
which should have been started in the study of Anglo-Saxon 
and Celtic literature, and may be in danger of being forgotten 
by this time. Or a lecture on Dunbar and Henryson, comparing 
them with Burns, would be interesting. 

The Origin of Ballads is a subject rather out of the range 
of . high-school scholars, but a talk by the teacher drawn from 
Child and Gummere could make the important subject lucid 
and intelligible. Ballads and folklore in other countries might 
be compared with those of England, or the class might be told 
about European forms of ballads found in our own tongue. A 
lecture on the social and political conditions of the century 
would be of service. 



PAET III 

THE RENAISSANCE 



CHAPTER I 
THE REBIRTH 

THE word " renaissance " means rebirth, and it is 
not too strong a word for what happened to the 
nations of Europe when the middle ages were ex- 
hausted. However great they were, these middle 
ages, they were bound to pass away sooner or later. 
Every order of civilization has its term. Men are 
always forgetting this, and thinking that the order 
in which they live is final. Most people think this 
to-day about our industrial democracy ; so people in 
the fifteenth century believed that feudalism and the 
Roman Catholic Church could never lose their hold 
on the English race. They had lasted so long, these 
mighty powers ! longer than the memory of men's 
great-great-grandfathers ! When symptoms of decay 
began to appear in them, people became frightened. 
They fell into those moods of lethargy or reckless- 
ness which we described in the last chapter, they 
took to fearing that Death reigned supreme. 

They were right in thinking that the old was 
doomed, but they did not know what great new 
things were to come. Even in literature, the no- 
blest and most beautiful achievements of the race 
were yet to be. Think of the state of English litera- 
ture in 1500. There was no Shakespeare, no Milton, 
no Spenser, no Bacon, no Tennyson, nor Wordsworth, 
nor Carlyle, nor Dickens. Chaucer was the only 

169 



170 



THE RENAISSANCE 



The Re- 
naissance 
and the 
Reforma- 
tion. 



Separate 
in Europe. 



United in 
England. 



author of the first order of importance who had yet 
appeared. 

The new experience which was to come to England 
had already taken brilliant form in Italy. Strictly 
and literally speaking, we call it the Renaissance. 
This was a secular movement ; it meant an enlarged 
hunger for learning and knowledge, a quickened 
sense for beauty and for art. Meanwhile in Ger- 
many a little later a religious movement, not wholly 
different from the Renaissance in cause, produced a 
very different result : the Reformation. 

The Renaissance and the Reformation were at 
bottom from the same source, — the new craving 
for inward freedom. But they were strangely dif- 
ferent in manifestation, and as a rule they appealed 
to different races. The interesting thing about the 
early phases of the new life in England was that the 
two impulses were combined. In Italy the Renais- 
sance tended to irreligion : in Germany, the Refor- 
mation did little or nothing to foster art or letters. 
The English, a race at once Teutonic and Latin, 
seemed for a time to hold the two forces in a noble 
harmony. Later the two currents, even in England, 
separated. One set toward Puritanism ; the other 
drove men back within the horizons of earth, and 
fixed their eyes on its seductions and their hearts on 
its desires with results that we shall see. For a long 
time, however, the friendly interplay of the forces 
making toward religious and toward secular free- 
dom, toward reformed faith on the one hand and 
enlarged learning on the other, produced conse- 
quences in England such as were not to be found 
in any other country. And, to the end, the ethical 



THE REBIRTH 



171 



classics. 



Germanic strain in the sturdy English, race pre- 
vented them from falling into the excesses of the 
later Renaissance, that disfigured the alluring but 
corrupt Italy of the Borgias. 

The rediscovery of the classic past was the chief The Re- 
inspiration of the Renaissance. Suddenly, the world 
awakened to knowledge of the literature and art of 
Greece and Rome. In 1453, the fall of Constantinople 
sent the Greek scholars who had gathered there, 
flying with their precious manuscripts to Italy, where The 
they received a warm welcome. George Eliot's the 
" Romola " gives a fine picture of the eager delight 
with which the new study was welcomed at Florence. 
Greek had hardly been known at all in Western 
Europe during the middle ages, and, indeed, many of 
the greatest of the Latin writers also had become 
merely names to conjure with. It was not long 
before this enthusiasm for Greek spread from Italy 
to England. Soon all men and many women of 
intellect were thirstily imbibing the new knowledge. 
Forgotten poets, orators, historians, philosophers, 
resumed their rightful place as intellectual leaders 
of the race. Aristotle had been known throughout 
the middle ages, and had absolutely controlled medi- 
aeval thought. Now Plato was discovered, and was 
henceforth to affect men's spiritual moods, if not 
their intellectual systems, more profoundly than ever 
Aristotle had done. People were no longer to think 
of Virgil as a mighty magician ; they were to try 
their hand at translating him. They were to read 
Homer, the Greek tragedians, the Latin moralists, all 
the spokesmen of the past. The arts of the ancient 
world, now first revealed, afforded standards for a 



172 



THE RENAISSANCE 



perfection of form, for a clearness of thought, of 
which the middle ages had never dreamed. The 
glorious achievement of men who had shaped laws, 
civilizations, creeds, quite different from their own, 
was made clear to them. Only in a wise knowl- 
edge of the past has clear progress ever been made 
toward the future. No wonder that the generation 
to whom this knowledge first came leaped suddenly 
into maturity. 

The dis- To strengthen this expansion of men's thoughts 
the New* came the discovery of America. It is almost im- 
Worid. possible to realize to-day the state of mind of people 
who lived and died in contented ignorance of the 
size and shape and contents of this great home of 
ours. But people had all been so busy thinking of 
heaven and hell that they had not troubled their 
minds much about the shape of the visible earth. 
They knew the Mediterranean and the countries 
around it. Far away, beyond, were mysterious lands 
where people were black, or had one eye, perhaps, or 
carried their heads beneath their shoulders. They 
were very rich, some of these lands, and full of en- 
chantments. So dim reports of Asia and Africa 
floated in the air ; but of our whole great America, 
not an inkling did men have. And this was only a 
little more than four hundred years ago ! 

Then began the great voyages of which we know : 
the voyages of Columbus, of Cabot, of Americus 
Vespucius, and the rest. Every one knows Colum- 
bus's date, whatever else he may forget ; it was only 
thirty years after, in 1522, that the globe was con- 
quered, circumnavigated for the first time. Nor 
did these events end the Era of Discovery : long 



THE REBIRTH 



173 



after this, till the last of the sixteenth century, 
through the days of Drake and Raleigh, lasted the 
stirring romance of adventure and exploration. 1 At 
first, people, in the weary, satirical mood of the 
fifteenth century, failed to kindle with any enthu- 
siasm at the opening of the new lands. We find 
Barclay, in the " Ship of Fools," explaining that 
Ferdinand, king of Spain, had discovered many new 
regions of late, very far away ; and the moral he 
draws is, " So you may see how foolish it is to devote 
one's self to the unsure and vain science of geog- 
raphy, since none can know the earth's surface per- 
fectly." It was not long, however, before men grew 
ashamed of such discouraged sentiments, and deduced 
more inspiriting conclusions. The spirit of Odin the 
Wanderer, the god of their fathers, seized them ; and 
whether they pushed out themselves to brave perils 
unguessed, to win distant lands, to explore and to 
conquer, or whether they stayed at home and awaited 
reports from those who sailed, we must think of 
them for a hundred years as constantly a-quiver with 
a great expectation. At no other time has there 
been just this situation. The facts about the world 
were actually known in outline ; people realized that 
this whole earth was theirs, their very own, to explore 
and subdue at will. And yet, concerning the de- 
tails of this their earth-heritage they knew nothing. 
They had not unlearned yet the old belief in the 
supernatural. The Fountain of Youth might ever 
lie behind the next mountain-range ; in some unsus- 
pected isle in far-off seas might be waiting the 

1 Copernicus, who first taught the true relation of our world to 
the starry universe, died in 1543. 



174 



THE RENAISSANCE 



Earthly Paradise. Alas ! we know better now, nor 
do we expect that any Arctic explorer will find the 
Garden of Eden at the Pole, the one unconquered 
spot that still remains. 

So men discovered, within one short fifty years, 
the past of their own race, and the present of the 
world around them. The effect of this double dis- 
covery was of course to fix their attention and their 
enthusiasm upon this actual earth on which we live. 
They turned away from the dreams and visions so 
dear to the middle ages. They turned to "this 
very world: which is the world," — so Wordsworth 
tells us, — " wherein we find our happiness, or not 
at all." An immense desire for knowledge took pos- 
session of people : an impulse toward an universal 
inquiry, a longing to explore the great new worlds 
waiting discoveries in the sphere of thought, as well 
as in the solitude of tropic seas. A revolt set in 
against restraint, convention, authority, in every 
direction. 

The Kefor- This movement of expansion was greatly strength- 
mation. eneo | an( j ennobled in England by the Protestant 
Reformation. Here is not the place to dwell on it. 
The efforts after religious freedom in the time of 
Wyclif had been suppressed ; in the late fifteenth 
century, the spirit rose again and proved itself im- 
mortal. But not without a struggle. Through the 
times of Henry VIII and Edward VI, through the 
lurid age of Queen Mary, on into the age of Eliza- 
beth, the Reformed Church was winning its way. 
The mediaeval ideal of asceticism was rejected ; a 
new emphasis was placed on the freedom of individ- 
ual conscience. The dominion of Rome was driven 



THE REBIRTH 



175 



back inch by inch, and English Christianity became 
once more independent of foreign control. 

And so the zest for living came back to men : at The inven- 
first slowly, then with a mighty rush. At the end printing, 
of the fifteenth century appeared a new art to help 
the new spirit : the art of printing. It revolutionized 
letters ; it all but revolutionized the intellectual life. 
It was a mechanical thing, but one of those mechani- 
cal things that helps to set free the human spirit. 

" Mere mechanical help ? So the hand gives a toss 
To the falcon, — aloft once, spread pinions and fly, 
Beat air far and wide, up and down and across ! 

My Press strains a-tremble : whose masterful eye 
Will be first, in new regions, new truth to descry ? 

Ki Far and wide, North and South, East and West, have 
dominion 

O'er Thought, winged wonder, Word ! Traverse 
world 

In sun-flash and sphere-song ! Each beat of thy pinion 
Bursts night, beckons day : once Truth's banner 
unfurled 

Where's Falsehood? Sun-smitten, to nothingness 
hurled ! " 1 

It was sometime between 1470 and 1480 that William 

Caxton. 

Caxton, a good Englishman who had long sojourned 
in the Low Countries and had learned this strange 
new trade there, set up his press in London. Print- 
ing had already been known on the Continent for 
over thirty years. They are strange-looking objects 
to us to-day, these early books which issued from the 
first presses ; heavy, enormous, ungainly volumes, 
printed in black-letter, which is often beautiful but 

1 Browning, ' 4 Fust and his Friends.' ' 



176 



THE RENAISSANCE 



very hard to read. Almost every library lias fac- 
similes if not originals of some of these old books ; 
and one feels very thoughtful as one gazes at them 
or lifts them, thinking what the printed book has 
meant to the world. At first, as was natural, the 
new art served old affections, and the list of books 
which issued from Caxton's press reads almost like a 
review of mediaeval literature. But whatever their 
subject, these old volumes speak more of the future 
than of the past or present ; for their very existence 
proves that the modern world was born. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

J. A. Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy, the standard his- 
tory of the most important phase of the Renaissance ; also 
Symonds' article on the Renaissance in " Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica," ninth edition. Jacob Burckhardt, The Renaissance in 
Italy. 

William Blades's Life and Typography of William Cax- 
ton contains numerous facsimile cuts ; also, shorter 1 vol. work, 
The Biography and Typography of William Caxton. G. H. 
Putnam, Books and their Makers during the Middle Ages. 
A. W. Pollard, Early Illustrated Books. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

It would be valuable here, if practicable, to illustrate the 
change that was passing over Europe by brief, simple talks 
on the painting and architecture of the Renaissance as com- 
pared with those of the middle ages. To show a class photo- 
graphs from Cimabue, Giotto, Botticelli, and Raphael, with 
simple comments, makes the great development far more vivid 
than any mere discussion of literature can do. 

A lecture on the history of printed books, with something 
about the great early printers, is as interesting as a romance, 
and would help to awaken in students enthusiasm for the beau- 
tiful bodies of books. 



CHAPTER II 



LEARNING AND POETRY UNDER HENRY VIII 

I. The New Learning 

THE Universities had a great part to play in the Thework 
English revival of learning. Oxford and Cam- versities. 
bridge had become rather arid and dusty places at 
this time. They had betaken themselves to repeat- 
ing intellectual conventions : it is a way Universities 
have. But now a new spirit stirred in them, spread 
from them, and sent a quickening thrill through the 
length and breadth of England. This, too, occasion- 
ally happens in an academic centre ; and a great 
home of learning must always live in hopes of a 
visitation of this kind. 

The introduction of the study of Greek was the 
chief influence that re-created English scholarship. 
" The students," wrote an eye-witness at Oxford in 
the early sixteenth century, " rush to Greek letters. 
They endure watching, fasting, toil, and hunger, in 
pursuit of them." It was still earlier, in 1497, that 
the famous Dutch scholar Erasmus, going to Oxford Rasmus, 
because he was too poor to visit the goal of his long- 
ings, Italy, found himself amazed and delighted at the 
intellectual enthusiasms and sound scholarship of the 
place. His soul, an-hungered for Greek learning, met 
the full gratification of its desires. " I have found 
in Oxford," he writes, " so much polish and learning 

177 



178 



THE RENAISSANCE 



that now I hardly care about going to Italy at all, 
save for the sake of having been there. When I 
listen to my friend Colet, it seems like listening to 
Plato himself. Who does not wonder at the wide 
range of Grocyn's knowledge ? What can be more 
searching, deep, and refined than the judgment of 
Linacre ? When did nature mould a temper more 
gentle, endearing, and happy than the temper of 
Thomas More?" A close and tender bond of 
personal friendship sprang up among these eager 
scholars, who felt themselves united in as high a 
quest as were ever the knights of old : the quest 
for spiritual and intellectual light, the campaign 
against that worst of dragons, Ignorance. The 
records of the affectionate, witty, earnest intercourse 
of the little group are fascinating reading. All of 
them were men who left their mark on their genera- 
tion. All blended, in a rather unusual fashion, the 
temper of the reformer and the scholar, of the keen 
critic and the devout believer. 
Colet brilliant work of Erasmus does not belong to 

Dean of the story of English letters. Among" the English- 

St. Paul's, , . i ..i, . i • a 

1502. men, we must not pass by, without one loving word, 
the beautiful figure of John Colet. He afterward 
became the Dean of St. Paul's, and by his establish- 
ment of grammar schools on a new system, laid the 
foundations for a sound education for the people at 
large. " Lift up your little white hands," wrote 
Colet to his young scholars, " for me which prayeth 
for you to God." Colet was one of that long and 
honorable line of English Churchmen who have com- 
bined a passion for sound learning with devout faith, 
with simplicity and love. He was a true descendant 
of Bede. 



LEARNING AND POETRY 



179 



But of all these first men of the modern world, Sir 
the most interesting and attractive is undoubtedly More,' 
Sir Thomas More, one of the noblest Englishmen, 1480-1 
statesmen, dreamers, Christians, that have ever lived. 
His great book, the " Utopia," shines like a beacon 
light at the entrance to the new life of the nation. 
He was a man placed high in distinction. From a 
gracious boyhood passed in the household of a great 
Church dignitary, he went to the University. Thence 
he passed to a steadily rising eminence in a legal 
career; till the young king, Henry VIII, himself 
one of the most ardent patrons of the New Learning, 
singled him out for favor, and finally made him Vice- 
Chancellor of England, as well as his own close per- 
sonal friend. 

More carried his honors serenely. His joy was 
in his friends, his books, his family life ; he was a 
most lovable, humorous, kindly, clear-thinking man. 
" Sweetness and light," the qualities so -praised by 
Matthew Arnold, serve perfectly to describe his 
character and his work. He lived in soberness, too, 
near to the thought of God. He was a devout 
Roman Catholic, with no sympathy for the new 
faith. It is strange to think of an exponent of the 
New Learning and an enthusiast for Greek letters 
wearing, unknown to any, a hair shirt next his skin. 

More's life presents another strange paradox. He 
was a radical social dreamer ; yet he was high in the 
counsels of kings. No one was more alive to this 
paradox, and the insecurity it implied, than he ; and 
he could not have been much surprised when the 
sunshine of the royal favor deserted him. His con- 
science could not accept the claims of the king to be 



180 



THE RENAISSANCE 



Head of the visible Church, and to divorce a wife when 
it pleased him. He was pursued with the demand 
for an oath he could not take, disgraced, imprisoned, 
and, in 1535, beheaded. He died, martyr at once to 
faith and to freedom : the Roman Church did well 
when, in 1886, she added him to her list of the 
saints. 

More's writings came in his early life, before the 
storms of his career as a statesman. His " Lives " 
of Edward V and of Richard III may be said to 
mark the beginning of modern history, and their 
fine and dignified manner certainly promises a new 
development of English prose. But the book by 
which he lives, the epitome of the best intuitions 
and aims of the New Learning, was no story of 
what is ; it was a vision of what might be, — the 
tale of the land of Utopia. 
The The book dates from 1515 and 1516. It was writ- 

i5]U3 t0pia '" ^ en ^ n Latin, — still the language of scholarship ; 

but before half a century was over, one Ralph Robin- 
son had put it into rich and nobly cadenced English, 
and in this form, as well as in more modern trans- 
lations, it is accessible to us all. The " Utopia," like 
so many books in the middle ages, is a dream ; but 
a dream of how new an order ! For it tells, not of 
saints or angels, or monsters or devils, but of happy, 
laborious, natural men and women, living in a region 
which is indeed mysterious, — non-existent if you 
will, — but which, if it were to exist anywhere, 
would exist here on this earth. The "Utopia" is 
the romance of an ideal society, and audacious was 
the man who dared to dream of it ! The speculative 
freedom, the longing for a human blessedness, fos* 



LEARNING A2sD POETRY 



181 



tered by the Renaissance, had entered More's spirit ; 
and they enabled him to show us a new earth — to 
behold the first, though not the last vision seen by 
modern Europe, of a perfect social state. The bitter 
injustice which he saw all about him has yielded in 
his dream to a universal sharing of happy work and 
simple life. Men have made the earth at last a 
home, not of luxury for some, but of comfort for all. 

Probably the part of the " Utopia " which to More's 
contemporaries seemed most preposterously impossi- 
ble was that in which he told them that in Utopia 
every man was free to worship God according to his 
own conscience, without compulsion or persecution. 
Roman Catholic as he was, More put forth in this 
part of his book a ringing manifesto for religious 
freedom. Many fires were to burn, the anguish of a 
great exile was to be suffered by our own forefath- 
ers, before his prophecy should be fulfilled. But 
fulfilled it is. We cannot say so much for the part 
of the book that describes industrial and social free- 
dom. Not yet. Some people like Utopia; some do 
not. Some tell us that the name of the country will 
always be Utopia, which means Xowhere ; some 
agree with a punning contemporary of More's, who 
says that the real name of the land is and shall be 
Eutopia, the land where life is blessed. 

The " Utopia " is the greatest among all the books 
of imaginary travels written during the Renaissance. 
If we compare it with the Travels of the pseudo- 
Mandeville, so dear to the middle ages, we shall see 
how the mood of men has changed. It has changed 
from the hunger for marvels to the hunger for 
justice. The book is the first expression, after 



182 



THE RENAISSANCE 



Langland, of the passion for a social ideal. Plenty 
of such books have followed it. In modern times, 
we have regained a little the spirit of hope; and 
various people, both Americans and Englishmen, 
poets, novelists, economists even, have travelled to 
Utopia and brought back fresh tidings of the coun- 
try. But none have told about it so delightfully as 
Sir Thomas More. 



II. The New Art 



Sir 

Thomas 

Wyatt, 

1503-1542. 

Henry 

Howard, 

Earl of 

Surrey, 

1517-1547. 



The 

influence 
of Italy 
on the 
English 
Renais- 
sance. 



The Renaissance brought to England an enlarged 
learning and a quickened thought ; it brought a new 
literary art as well. This new art found its first 
expression in the earlier half of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, during the latter part of the reign of Henry 
VIII. Sir Thomas Wyatt, and Henry Howard, 
Earl of Surrey, were the men who practised it first. 
In Italy, long before in the fourteenth century, the 
spirit of the Renaissance had already been at work, 
and the poets, especially Petrarch, had felt all these 
things. Now, at last, England as a whole began to 
respond to Italian influence; and from this time all 
through the age of Elizabeth, this influence is to be 
in manifold phases dominant, quickening, mighty. 

Henry VIII was certainly an unattractive person 
in some of his aspects ; and he put Sir Thomas More 
to death. But he was always a polished gentleman 
who loved art and learning. Wyatt and Surrey 
were both noblemen attached to this court. They 
were courtiers, lovers, and only incidentally poets as 
well. Both of them wrote love-poems in the Italian 
fashion. Wyatt, who was fourteen years older than 



LEARNING AND POETRY 



183 



Surrey, wrote in a manner distinctly more archaic, 
but at times with a certain seriousness and weight 
which are impressive. Surrey, the more musical 
versifier, seems to have been also the sweeter nature. 
The poetry of neither, however, has very great in- 
trinsic beauty ; but it is highly significant because 
in it is caught the first note of a new music : — 

" Calm is the sea, the waves work less and less •. 
So am not I, whom love, alas ! doth wring, 
Bringing before my face the great increase 
Of my desires, whereat I weep and sing." 1 

That is not much in itself, perhaps, but listening to 
it we realize that in another fifty years we shall be 
listening to Shakespeare. The music is a little un- 
certain and faint, but it is surely there. 

We must remember that by this time the language 
of Chaucer was as different from ordinary speech as 
it is to-day, and that people had not our knowledge 
of how to read his verse. Neither had they any 
idea of measure or prosody. The poets had really 
no English models. All their work was of necessity 
tentative ; and it was only the sentiment and the 
exquisite melody of Italian models, especially the 
lyrics of Petrarch, that enabled them to write grace- 
fully at all. 

In both Wyatt and Surrey, the melancholy and 
the aptitude for religious and social meditation of 
the Teutonic race play strangely through the Italian 
grace and sweetness. Wyatt writes in his later life 
grave satires ; Surrey translates the Book of Eecle- 
siastes and paraphrases the Psalms. Each had a 

1 Surrey. From a sonnet in "Tottel's Miscellany. 1 ' 



184 



THE RENAISSANCE 



Work of romantic life, on which we may only touch. Several 
Surrey. and of Wyatt's poems gain a personal interest and pathos 
from the belief of some critics that they commemorate 
his hopeless passion for Anne Boleyn. The autobio- 
graphical note is yet clearer in Surrey, and it is a 
note rarely indeed heard in older poets. But Surrey's 
tragic end casts a shadow for us over his most light- 
hearted pages : like so many others in those days he 
was accused of treason, and, in 1547, executed, like 
More, on the block. 

It was Wyatt who first introduced sonnets into 
English verse, and the gift to us was a great one. 
Surrey also wrote sonnets, not confining himself to 
the Italian form used by Wyatt, but experimenting 
with that freer movement of quatrains and a final 
couplet, which was to be glorified by Shakespeare. 
But to Surrey alone belongs the great honor of intro- 
ducing to England that poetic form which was to be 
the instrument of its noblest writers, — blank verse. 
This he did in his translation of two books from 
Virgil's "iEneid." Since the old alliterative line 
had died, there had been no dignified standard line 
in English. No one could guess from Surrey's use 
of blank verse the harmonies which it was to yield 
in the hands of Shakespeare and Milton ; yet to be 
the first technically to use such an instrument is to 
have valid claim to a place in English letters. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Green, Short History of the English People, Ch. VI, Sec. IV, 
The New Learning. Ten Brink, Vol. Ill, Book VI, Sec. IV. 
Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers. J. A. Froude, Life of 
Erasmus, esp. Chs. Ill, VI, VII. Emerton, Life of Erasmus. 



LEARNING AND POETRY 



185 



Eeasmus, The Praise of Folly; Pilgrimages of St. Mary of 
Walsingham and St. Thomas of Canterbury, ed. by J. G. 
Nichols. Lives of Jehan Yitrier and John Colet, tran. by J. H. 
Lupton. Annie Manning, The Household of Sir Thomas More 
(a charming story). V. D. Scudder, Social Ideals in English 
Letters, Ch. II. More's Utopia, Camelot edition, with Introduc- 
tion by Maurice Adams, and Life of More, by his son-in-law 
Roper. In Ideal Commonwealths, ed. by Henry Morley ; ed. 
by William Morris, with short Introduction, of great value, 
in the Kelmscott Press; scholar's edition, by J. H. Ll t pton, 
with Latin text and Robynson's translation. See also More's 
Life of Pico della Mirandola, an Italian scholar and Christian 
of the Renaissance, ed. J. M. Rigg. Wyatt and Surrey are well 
handled in the last volume of Ten Brink. Selections from 
their works will be found in Ward's English poets, Vol. I, and 
in Tottel's Miscellany, reprinted by Arber. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

Free summary and discussion is most valuable on the " Uto- 
pia. 1 ' If Morris's " News from Nowhere " and Bellamy's " Look- 
ing Backward " can be read, so much the better. More's noble 
personality should be brought home to the class, as can easily 
be done through the abundant biographical material. 

Wyatt and Surrey can be lightly passed over, with readings 
perhaps from the extracts in Ward's "English Poets." Lovelier 
lyrics are waiting. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

Life in Oxford during the Revival of Learning; Plato's 
" Republic " and its Influence on More ; Modern Social Dreams, 
similar to the " Utopia " ; Petrarch and his Influence on the 
English Lyric. 



CHAPTER III 



OUTLINES OF ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 

The time /^\NE would have supposed that after More and 
pause, Wyatt and Surrey, the new impulse in art and 

thought would have produced a new literature at 
once. But this did not happen. Political and reli- 
gious distractions prevented. The short reign of 
Edward VI. produced one noble monument of Eng- 
lish prose, the first version of the " Book of Common 
Prayer," and one rude, homely voice, the voice of 
Latimer, was uplifted in accents that recall Wyclif 
and Langland. Then came the reign of Queen 
Mary, and small wonder is it that the most popular 
book it produced was Foxe's " Book of Martyrs," in 
its early Latin dress. Men in England could hardly 
warble madrigals while they knew that other men 
were burning at the stake. 

Even after the accession of Elizabeth, the terrified 
hush that had fallen upon the nation continued. It 
took twenty years for England to rally. Elizabeth 
became queen in 1558 ; it was not till 1579 that the 
Elizabethan era of English literature is usually said 
to begin, with the publication of a series of delicate 
pastoral poems, Spenser's " Shepherd's Calendar." 
Before this time, there had been faint attempts and 
promises, but nothing for which a book of this scope 
need pause. 

But when this literary period once began, it soon 
186 



ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 



18T 



became, not only the most wonderful period that The 
England has yet known, but one of the most won- bethan 
derful ever known by any country. The victory of age " 
the Reformed Faith was assured. The young nation 
was at peace within, enjoying a new commercial expan- 
sion and prosperity ; abroad, she was measuring her- 
self in heroic warfare against Spain, an heroic foe. 
Men looked away from the heavens, but beheld with 
a thrill of freedom the horizons of earth ever widen- 
ing, receding, beckoning, and felt themselves, with 
Puck, able to clap a girdle round the earth in forty 
minutes. Come softly ; for we are approaching the 
days of Shakespeare. They are the days of Spenser 
too, of Sir Philip Sidney, of Bacon, Hooker, Raleigh, 
Ben Jonson, — the days of the sweetest lyric England 
has ever heard, of a noble reflective and imaginative 
prose, of a supreme drama. 

The literary activity under the great queen began, 
as we have seen, in 1579. To discuss the quarter 
century that followed, we shall need as much space 
as for all the mediaeval centuries put together. The 
nation, in this short time, passed through nearly all 
the experiences of human life, from youth to man- 
hood ; and before we study its literary expression in 
detail, we will glance briefly at the different phases 
of experience, or different moods, which underlay the 
literature. 

At first, when toward the beginning of Elizabeth's Pre-Dra- 
reign the mysterious impulse toward artistic expres- p^o^ 
sion began to stir, men did not take it very seriously. 1579 - 1590 
They toyed with life and art, poetry and prose. 
They were " empassioned," to use a fine word of 
Spenser's, with felicity of phrase ; they tried count- 



188 



THE RENAISSANCE 



less literary experiments. But through these experi- 
ments, often childish enough, breathed inspiration. 
A youthful delight in life pervaded the nation. 
This early Elizabethan literature was not profound 
nor comprehensive. It proceeded mainly from 
the court and the gentry ; it was aristocratic, and 
beset by little affectations. And yet, it has a joy- 
ous, eager magic, never to be forgotten. 

A wealth of lyrics is the most notable and delight- 
ful product of this period. Nothing has ever equalled 
the marvellous lyrical development of those days ; 
we have had many noble lyrics since, which have 
added glory to our race, but we have never been 
able to recapture that first fine careless rapture. At 
the same time, many other literary forms were 
appearing, with the same strange mixture of experi- 
ment and inspiration. Criticism in prose sprang up ; 
art-prose was feeling its way. The great Eliza- 
bethan translations began, and prose of adventure 
and patriotism started with a splendid impetus. 
This period of romance, of poetic experiment, of 
keen enthusiasm for adventure and for learning, 
moved to its climax in a great romantic epic, in 
which all these elements blend, and are transfigured 
by the inward radiance of imagination. The first 
Elizabethan period begins with the publication of 
Spenser's " Shepherd's Calendar," in 1579 ; it may 
be said to close with the publication of the first three 
books of his " Faerie Queene," in 1590. 
Dramatic Now the mood "of the nation was to alter : it was 

Period, 

1590-1602. to play with life no longer. The literature of the 
next period was to express an overwhelming reality 

The rise of , - . a . £ 

the drama, of experience and of passion. Soon, m three or tour 



ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 



189 



years at latest, will be acted " Romeo and Juliet," 
and that means that one poet, at least, has power to 
lay bare the depths of passion ; already, in 1587, 
Marlowe's " Dr. Faustus " had struck a solemn tragic 
note, like a warning bell. The day belongs to a new 
art ; and during all the rest of Elizabeth's reign, and 
through the reign of her successor, the chief imagi- 
native energies of the English race are absorbed in 
that great creation, the romantic drama. 

Not that other literary forms are superseded. The 
lyric production goes on unchecked, changing its 
mood, but if anything increasing in beauty as it presses 
through self-conscious art closer and closer to the 
heart of experience. Translations multiply, and 
patriotic prose is glowing still. Reflective prose 
rises in Hooker, and finds a different but equally bril- 
liant adept in Bacon. But the drama overshadows 
all, and that is because it is the fullest expression 
of life. It is not necessarily written by gentlemen, 
or courtiers, or saints. Far behind us are the days 
when all literature proceeded from chivalry or from 
the Church. It slowly escapes from mannerism and 
convention, and grows stronger as it goes on. 

Meanwhile, after 1590, during the preponderance 
of the drama, we may trace various phases of 
experience. The nation shook off its affectations, 
emerged from experiment, and gained a wonderful 
gift of self-expression, personal or sympathetic. For 
a time, the joy of life and the marvel thereof was 
still what Elizabethan literature chiefly rendered. 
But the sense of power and pleasure did not last. 
A deeper quality and a sadder crept in ; spontaneity 
faded. The effort after form was not so marked as 



190 



THE RENAISSANCE 



in the first period, but an effort in thought became 
evident. Men began to record less, to philosophize, 
to meditate, more. Suddenly, tragedy is with us; 
a great tragedy, before which we bow our heads, — 
the tragedy of "Hamlet." All these phases can be 
followed by any sensitive person who scrutinizes year 
by year the output in prose and poetry during the 
last twelve years of the queen's reign. The first 
Essays of Bacon, published in 1597, may be said to 
usher in the later mood ; or better still, the sonnets 
of Shakespeare, of which we know that some at least 
were in existence by 1598. Indeed, the work of 
Shakespeare completely covers and represents all 
this development. 

Experience did not stop here ; it went straight on 
into new phases. But we have reached the end of 
the reign of the great queen. It was presumably in 
1602 that "Hamlet" was acted, and from the 
" Shepherd's Calendar " to " Hamlet " is a long 
enough journey for one chapter to review at a 
glance, though any one who likes can follow the 
story without break to the death of Shakespeare. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Historical. Green, History of England, Ch. VII, Sees. 
V-VIII. Froude, History of England. Traill, Social 
England, Vol. III. Thornbury, Shakespeare's England; 
Creighton, The Age of Elizabeth. Goadby, The England of 
Shakespeare. W. B. Rye, England as seen by Foreigners in 
the Days of Elizabeth and James. Harrison's England (the 
best contemporary description, from Holinshed's " Chronicle." 
Reprinted in the Camelot series). Walter Scott, Kenil- 
worth. Charles Kingsley, Westward Ho ! 

Literary. Saintsbury, Elizabethan Literature. David 
H ann ay, The Later Renaissance. Morley, English Writers, 



ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE 



191 



Vols. IX, X, XL TaIx\e, English Literature, Bk. II. Court- 
hope, History of English Poetry, Vol. II. Jusserand, The 
English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

The dry facts of Elizabethan literary chronology should be 
accurately learned in outline by the student ; the outline will 
be filled in with the study of later chapters. It is important, 
as this great period is approached, that it should be made, so 
far as possible, a living reality to the student. Readings from 
Harrison, from trustworthy novels, as well as from standard 
histories, may lead to topics on such subjects as Elizabethan 
costume, building, cooking, manners and customs, town life, 
country life, etc. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

If students are unfamiliar with the history of the period, an 
outline lecture on it is highly desirable, for politics and litera- 
ture are more closely connected in the age of Elizabeth than 
in many periods of our literature. 



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CHAPTER IV 



SIR, PHILIP SIDNEY 

F I THE literature of the Renaissance differs from sir Philip 
that of the middle ages. It is no longer an i5^f^' 86< 
anonymous, collective matter, expressing the passion 
of many; it comes straight from the heart of indi- 
viduals. These men are often known to us in his- 
tory; they reveal themselves in their works; and we 
may make friends of them if we will. 

Let us try to make a friend of Sir Philip Sidney. Sidney's 
If we do so, we shall learn to know "a noble and character - 
matchless gentleman," as a contemporary calls him, 
and we shall fully understand the temper and 
achievement of the early Elizabethan age ; for his 
shining figure gathers into itself all the light of that 
great dawn. Sidney was born in 1554, of high and 
glorious lineage ; and well he became his birth. 
Even as a child, he was singularly attractive, 
"with such staidness of mind," writes a dear, life- 
long friend, " lovely and familiar gravity, as carried 
grace and reverence above greater years. His talk 
ever of knowledge, and his very play tending to 
enrich his mind." He grew up no prig nor pedant, 
but a brilliant young nobleman, the chief ornament 
of the radiant court. He had, in common with 
many of the choice spirits of his day, a genius for 
friendship. " A sweete attractive kind of grace " 
shone we are told, from his countenance. Foreign 

197 



198 



THE RENAISSANCE 



travel, during which he visited Venice, where the 
magnificent art of Veronese was in full play, com- 
pleted his education; and he returned to England, 
to be the darling both of court and people, and to 
be sent abroad, while still a mere youth of twenty- 
two, on important diplomatic missions. His career 
and his reputation rose higher and higher ; but not 
for long. For in 1586 he died of a wound received 
at the battle of Zutphen. He had fought valiantly 
as he had lived nobly ; but he is remembered and 
his name has become a household word, less from his 
courage than for the sweet courtesy and unselfish 
thought for others that marked him in his mortal 
agony. " Thy necessity is greater than mine," said 
Sidney, yielding to a wounded soldier, " ghastly cast- 
ing up his eyes at the bottle," the water which he was 
raising to his own parched lips. 

Sidney summed up all that his time held dear. 
He was courtier, nobleman, statesman, warrior, 
gentleman. He was a lover, too, — and he was also 
a critic, a novelist, and a poet. In his literary work, 
we see all the characteristics of the period : its affec- 
tations and experiments ; its high romantic temper, 
its lyrical impulse, its intellectual eagerness, its 
idealism as yet unsullied by worldliness, though the 
world lies perilously near. The secret power of the 
Elizabethan age is revealed in the last line of 
Sidney's first sonnet. Trying by dainty device of 
literary art to celebrate his love after the fashion 
of "poor Petrarch's long deceased woes," a Power 
outside himself pulled him up short : — 

" Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, 
' Fool ! ? said my muse to me, ' look in thy heart, and 
write.' " 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 



199 



He obeyed the Muse ; and Elizabethan poetry fol- 
lowed. Sidney's lyrics, with all their quaintness, 
are the very first to give us in the full modern man- 
ner a direct revelation of the personal life of the 
heart. 

Sidney's critical work is a short essay, called " An Sidney's 
Apologie for Poetrie." It was written about 1580, prose ' 
in answer to a stupid attack on poetry made by one 
Stephen Gosson. We are glad of the attack, for it 
called out this noble answer, which we may fairly 
claim as the first serious piece of English criticism. Criticism. 
It is with the spirit of a knight that Sidney springs ^ n ogie 
to the defence of his beloved art. He does not criti- for 

Poetrie. 

cise nor analyze in cold blood ; he chants a splendid 
paean of praise. From his " Apologie," light seems 
to flash, annihilating time, on Shelley's beautiful 
"Defense of Poetry," and back again ; the two great 
spirits, "passionate lovers," both "of that unseen 
and everlasting beautie to be seen by the eyes of the 
mind only cleared by faith," hailing each other 
across the centuries. It is true that Sidney makes 
sad blunders. He defends the classical Unities, — 
little foreseeing the magnificent art of Shakespeare ; 
and it is strange to hear the contemporary of Spenser 
lamenting the absence of poetic inspiration in his 
day, and questioning "why England should bee 
grown so hard a step-mother to poets." But it was 
no more granted to Sidney than to another to foresee 
the future ; and his own high passion for poetry, as 
for all that could help " to make the too much loved 
earth more lovely," is the best answer to his pessi- 
mism and the best earnest of what is to come. 

Sidney's "Arcadia" was a pastoral and heroic 



200 



THE RENAISSANCE 



Romance. 

"The 
Countess 
of Pem- 
broke's 
Arcadia," 
1590. 



Sidney's 
poetry. 



" Astro- 
phel and 
Stella," 
1591. 



romance, shaped on Spanish models, and written to 
please his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. The 
book has all the redundance and extravagance of the 
Renaissance. It bewilders one because there is so 
much story, so lavish a style, such a confusion of 
exalted sentiments. Sidney has not yet mastered 
that supreme charm of the Pastoral, — simplicity, — 
the secret of which Shakespeare so exquisitely caught 
in " As You Like It." His "Arcadia," moreover, is 
much farther from life than is the Forest of Arden. 
Yet there are still those who like to wander in that 
country, to watch the series of sumptuous pictures 
reminding one of the great Venetian art which Sid- 
ney knew, to revel in the free and fearless union of 
sensuous beauty with perfect purity, and to feel, 
through all childishness of art, the impact of a lofty 
spirit upon our own. 

But it is above all through his lyrical work that 
we recognize in Sidney a great soul and a true poet. 
We feel in his sonnets the warm flame of emotion, 
burning away all the light affectations and unreali- 
ties with which he could play as well as another. 
He first, in his "Astrophel and Stella," told the 
inner story of his heart in a series of sonnets and 
songs. It were sufficient glory for him that Shake- 
speare and Spenser, Rossetti and Mrs. Browning, 
have been among his followers. Sidney's was an un- 
happy story. We cannot follow it here. He tells 
it, in the main, excellently well. We see in these 
sonnets the man of action, the courteous and admired 
gentleman, the scholar, as well as the lover. If any 
one would like to picture the bright Elizabethan 
court, with its pleasure parties on the Thames, its 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 



201 



play tournaments, its polite gossip and graceful 
badinage, if any one would reconstruct the manners 
of the time, here let him look. But he will find 
better than this : a rare felicity in poetic phrasing; 
better again, the revelation of a great love and of a 
noble though tempted heart : — 

" Soule's joy, bend not those morning stars from me, 
Where Virtue is made strong by Beautie's might ; 
Where Love is chastness, Paine doth learn delight, 
And Humbleness grows one with Majestie." 

Such poetry should not be forgotten. 
Sidney abjured his love at last. He cried, in 
piercing tones : — 

" Leave me, Love, which reachest but to dust ; 
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things ; 
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust ; 
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings. 
Then farewell, world ; thy uttermost I see : 
Eternal Love, maintain Thy life in me." 

This deep religious note completes our knowledge Sidney as 
of his character. He was rightly the beloved of thei6th° 
England, and it is not surprising that all the English centur y- 
poets wrote elegies upon him after his death. Sid- 
ney is the typical hero of the new age. We have 
had glimpses of the Hero from the dawn of history. 
At first, he embodied little save the primitive pas- 
sion for fighting. As the centuries went on, he 
added many traits : a wider, less selfish aim in his 
battles ; a code of honor ; the service and the love 
of womanhood ; a sincere religious feeling. But the 
old knights, noble as they were, lacked much that 
we demand from our heroes to-day. They fought 



202 



THE RENAISSANCE 



and loved and prayed, but they were ignorant and 
unthinking. Sidney is what they were, and more. 
The spirit of chivalry lives in him, undying. But 
he adds to the arts of war the graces of peace. He 
is a knight indeed : he is also a poet, a scholar, and 
a thinker, this hero of the Renaissance. In a word, 
he is the perfect gentleman. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

The standard edition of Sidney is by Alexander Grosart. 
A charming little volume of his lyrics is published by Ernest 
Rhys in the series The Lyric Poets (Dent). The " Apologie 
for Poetrie " is in the Arber reprints ; also in Rhys, Literary 
Pamphlets, Vol. I. A. D. Pollard has edited " Astrophel and 
Stella." Ruskin, in " Fors Clavigera," expresses delightfully 
his enthusiasm for Sidney, and his " Rock Honeycomb," Yol. II, 
of " Bibliotheca Pastorum," is an edition of Sidney's versified 
Psalms, with copious comments. 

See also H. R. Foxbourne, Sir Philip Sidney (Heroes of the 
Nations Series) ; Symonds, Life of Sidney (English Men of 
Letters). 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

" Astrophel and Stella " can be swiftly read, and one or two 
sonnets, including the sonnet on the " Highway " (84), and that 
on " Sleep " (39), can be learned by heart. Sidney's exquisite ear 
makes his verse a treasure-house for the study of verse forms. 
A class always enjoys making a study of Elizabethan court life 
from the picturesque material offered by the sonnets. The 
personality of the man is, however, what students should above 
all be made to feel. Some of the elegies written after his 
death, a number of which can be found in the Globe Spenser, 
may well be read, for the impression he made on his contem- 
poraries. 



CHAPTER V 



GENERAL LITERATURE 

I. Elizabethan Prose 

ROMANCE, criticism, and lyrics, — these three, 
so delightfully represented in the brief achieve- 
ment of Sidney, are, apart from the romantic epic, 
perhaps the most important phases of early Eliza- 
bethan literature. 

There was a large output of prose at this time, 
but it need not detain us long, for it was subordi- 
nate to the poetry, though it has a quaint charm 
of its own. It has a great deal of interest, though, 
for literary students ; for we see it slowly shaking 
off the tyranny of Latin style, and learning a har- 
mony of its own. Even in the reign of Henry 
VIII, Roger Ascham had announced in the intro- Roger 
duction of his book, the " Toxophilus," " I have 1515-1568, 
written this English matter in the English tongue lu^is^" 
for English men " ; yet this book, and his later 
work, the " Schoolmaster," read as if he were trans- The 
lating in his own mind from Latin into English, master,'" 
But the book which first stormed the affections of 1570 ' 
the Elizabethan court was of a very different order ; 
this was the " Euphues, or the Anatomie of Wit," 
of John Lyly ; it was published in 1579, the same JohnLyiy, 

1553~1606 

year with the " Shepherd's Calendar," and was 
almost immediately followed by a second part, 44 Eu- 

203 



204 



THE RENAISSANCE 



"Euphues, 
or the 
Anatomie 
of Wit," 
1579. 

' ' Euphues 
and his 
England," 
1580. 



Other 
work in 
romance. 



Lodge's 
" Rosa- 
lind," 
pub. 1590. 



phues and his England." It enjoyed an immense 
vogue ; traces of its influence may be found for 
thirty years afterward : its name has given a word, 
44 euphuism," to our speech. But to us this story — 
for it is a kind of story — seems portentously dull. 
Its style is affected and self-conscious to a degree, — 
all made up of antitheses and far-fetched conceits. 
At the same time, the book has in substance a cer- 
tain significance, for it is perhaps the first attempt 
in English at realistic fiction. The hero is neither 
a knight nor an outlaw ; he is an ordinary young 
gentleman of good manners, to whom nothing 
happens more exciting than a trip to Italy and 
sundry flirtations. The quaint book is only a liter- 
ary curiosity to-day. Perhaps some modern popular 
novels will seem just as queer, in two or three hun- 
dred years. 

Many other stories were written in Elizabeth's time. 
Often they got lost, like the Euphues, in a maze 
of affectations, sometimes, as in Sidney's " Arcadia " 
or Lodge's " Rosalind," they reached, under Spanish 
or Italian guidance, a land of pure romance. 
The "Rosalind," from which Shakespeare took the 
plot of "As You Like It," is one of the best of these 
books. These early novels have at times a good 
deal of charm, but they had not laid hold on reality, 
and so they could not live. 

Critical prose flourished for a time quite vigorously. 
Sidney's " Apologie for Poetrie " is the most impor- 
tant book of prose of this kind. Webbe's " Discourse 
of English Poetrie" reads as if the author were 
interested in what he wrote, though he made some 
curious blunders. Puttenham's " Art of English 



GENERAL LITERATURE 



205 



neous 
prose. 



Poesie " is more like a formal rhetoric. These Critical 
books are interesting because they illustrate a new prose " 
literary type ; but they have little real worth, and 
the critical impulse died away as creative power 
rose. Criticism cannot be great, as poetry can, at 
an early point of literary development. 

There is other work on which it would be inter- 
esting to linger, if so many other greater things did 
not await us. The eager spirit of adventure that 
marks the time finds expression in much spirited 
prose, especially in the delightful series of Hakluyt's 
"Voyages." Again, this rich period poured forth a Misceiia- 
large number of books inspired by patriotism. Some 
dealt with history and legend, like that treasure- 
house of the dramatists, Holinshed's "Chronicle." 
Some celebrated the glories of a present England, 
like the Voyages of Drake, and Sir Walter Raleigh's 
" Last Fight of the Revenge," a magnificent piece of 
eloquence, on which Tennyson has based a stirring 
ballad. Patriotism was one of the strongest pas- 
sions of the sixteenth century. It was so strong 
that it flowed over from prose to verse, and long 
poems were composed, like Daniel's " Civil Wars be- 
tween Lancaster and York," or Drayton's " Poly- 
olbion," dealing with the history of England or even 
with its geography. 

The emotional life of the time ran more naturally Prose of 
into poetry than into prose. The best Elizabethan reflectlon - 
prose was the prose of reflection. In the last decade, 
the " Essays " of Francis Bacon, and the " Ecclesias- 
tical Polity" of Richard Hooker, show us that the 
young nation has begun to think. Hooker's work Richard 
illustrates in prose, as we shall find Spenser illus- SsJieioo. 



206 



THE RENAISSANCE 



trating in poetry, the characteristic English union 
of the forces of the Reformation and of the Renais- 
sance. It is the first conscious intellectual expression 
of the Anglican Church ; and Hooker's conception 
of the law of God, revealed to man through three 
great channels, the Bible, the Church, and human 
reason, has been an inspiration to philosophical reli- 
gious thought ever since his day. His stately style, 
with its elaborate structure and musical cadences, is 
shaped on classical models ; but it founded the first 
definite school of English prose, and its tradition 
continued till nearly the end of the seventeenth 
Francis century. Bacon's incisive, epigrammatic style, 
F56i-i6 Q 6 though in itself very telling, founded no school. 

His amazing and brilliant essays represent the secu- 
lar side of the life of the Renaissance. They embody 
in admirable form the immense advance made by the 
times in the understanding of character and society. 
There is no idealism in them and they cherish no 
illusions, though fully appreciating that illusions are 
useful. They express, often with startling sincerity 
of phrase, the most subtle wisdom of this world, 
which is an interesting and noteworthy thing, though 
it could not have written Shakespeare's plays. 



II. Elizabethan Translations 

During all this time the work of translation went 
merrily on. Even before 1579, Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, 
Demosthenes, and other classic authors had been 
translated. In 1579, the year of the "Shepherd's 
Calendar " and " Euphues," appeared North's noble 
version of Plutarch. The Italian poets, Ariosto and 



GENERAL LITERATURE 



207 



Tasso, were soon presented to Englishmen in the 
famous translations of Harrington and Fairfax ; and 
in 1598 appeared the earlier part of the crowning 
achievement of Elizabethan translation, Chapman's 
great version of Homer. We see in Spenser and 
Shakespeare the result of this impact of foreign and 
classical genius upon the English mind. It is note- 
worthy that all the important influences of the time, 
whether ancient or modern, set from the Latin races ; 
from Rome, Spain, France. Almost it seems as if, 
despite the Norman Conquest, the native force of the 
Teutonic stock was in constant danger of overpow- 
ering other elements in the English race, unless a 
constant play of fertilizing forces from other direc- 
tions were brought to bear on it. 

We must not think that the ideal of translation in 
the Renaissance was what it is to-day. Chapman's 
Homer, for instance, is a great Elizabethan poem on 
the basis of the Greek poet; it is not a literal render- 
ing of Homer, although Chapman wished to make it 
so. In the middle ages, people treated the classic 
authors exactly as they pleased, altering them quite 
at pleasure. In the Renaissance, they had learned 
more respect, and they really translated their great 
predecessors, but they were quite incapable of 
giving the actual effect of the original. They 
looked at antiquity through colored Renaissance 
glasses, and it never occurred to them to take these 
glasses off. 

III. Elizabethan Lyrics 

We turn now to linger a little, with rejoicing 
hearts, in the Elizabethan garden of song. It is a 



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garden, not a woodland. These lovely sixteenth- 
century lyrics, inevitable and careless as they seem, 
have not the wilding charm of ballad or folk-song. 
Theirs is no " unpremeditated art " ; they are the 
product of culture, though culture would avail little 
if they were not rooted in the warm earth of human 
experience, and nourished by the free, potent sun- 
shine of imagination. They are artificial with that 
best kind of art which becomes part of the life of 
nature : — 

" For nature is made better by no mean 
But nature makes that mean/ 7 

as Shakespeare says. 
Early Many of the earlier lyrics of the period show in a 

me^ts in curious way this tentative, conscious, experimental 
metres character. What, the poets asked themselves, was 
the right way of writing English verse ? Should 
they copy the quantitative, unrhymed movement of 
the classics ? Yes ! answered for a time some of the 
best critics, including for a brief moment Spenser 
himself. Strange and absurd though this answer 
appear to us, we cannot wonder that it was given 
then. For the perfect dignity, beauty, and finish of 
classic metres fell fresh on people's ears, and of Eng- 
lish models they had few or none. So they set to 
work to concoct hexameters, sapphics, what you will, 
and extraordinary work they made of it. But the 
lovely, new-born muse of English song laughed at 
their pedantry ; and her laughter echoed in their 
ears and rippled through their veins like music, and 
in spite of themselves these would-be learned poets 
began to sing. Soon they became intoxicated — 



GENERAL LITERATURE 



209 



and no wonder — with their own words. They did 
not approve of rhyme, but rhyme they did, with 
delicate ease and abundance. They wanted to write 
serious quantitative verse, and melodies infinite in 
variety and charm rose unbidden to their lips. 
They made a virtue of necessity, yielded themselves 
to the spell, and added a fine artistic sense to the 
impulse of nature. Conscious experiment melted, 
almost at once, into spontaneous inspiration. 

What caused the whole nation to break forth sud- 
denly into music? Who can tell? The more we 
study, the more old song-books and miscellanies 
yield up their treasures, the more amazed we grow 
at the singing quality that was in the Elizabethan 
air. Numerous anthologies published during this Anthoio- 
period attest the strength of the lyrical impulse. gies " 
First of these was " Tottel's Miscellany," which came 
out as early as 1557. It contained much work of 
Surrey and Wyatt and of other lyrists as well ; and 
though some of it seems rough to our finer ears, the 
little book gave strong impetus to the lyrical move- 
ment. The very names of many of the other antholo- 
gies of the time are redolent of beauty and sweetness: 
" The Paradise of Dainty Devices," " A Gorgeous 
Gallery of Gallant Inventions," " Britton's Bower of 
Delights," " The Phoenix's Nest," 44 The Passionate 
Pilgrim," " England's Helicon," 44 Davison's Poetical 
Rhapsody." 

The blending of artifice with nature is especially Pastorals, 
evidenced by the pastoral spirit, popular in the early 
Elizabethan lyrics, as in the romances and the drama. 
We do not write pastorals any longer ; perhaps we 
shall never write them again. All the more reason 



210 



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why we should return now and then and rejoice to 
roam through this singing world of exquisite breed- 
Themes of ing without formality, where we may enjoy the 
the lyncs. £ ru ^ g £ c i v iii za tion without its pains. Of course, 
many of the lyrics are not pastoral, but nearly all of 
them express in somewhat a like manner pure ecstasy 
of joyous grace. They sing of love, of springtime, 
of blossom, they voice the rapturous praise of beauty 
and again return to their refrain, youth and love, 
love and youth. All moods of delicate courtship are 
in them, — gay, tender, plaintive, frolicsome, — only 
the depths of passion they seldom or never sound. 

This lyrical revel goes on unchecked into the age 
of King James. In the midst of it, before long, a 
more serious note is heard, and lyrics of a different 
character begin to appear. All this development is 
so marvellously rapid that to mark stages in it is 
dangerous if not impossible ; yet we shall be safe in 
saying that in the decade between 1590 and 1600, 
there appears a tendency to sincerer, graver, self- 
revelation, and at the same time to lyrical forms a 
little less ebullient in rapture, a little quieter and 
Sonnets, more elaborated. This is par excellence the decade 
of the sonnet, and of all lyrical forms practised by 
the Elizabethans the sonnet is that which has re- 
tained the most enduring place in English literature. 

Sidney's "Astrophel and Stella," though written 
earlier, was not published till 1591 ; and the follow- 
ing decade saw the writing of Spenser's " Amoretti," 
and of some at least of those final glories of the Eliz- 
abethan lyric, — the sonnets of Shakespeare. Lesser 
poets of distinction — Constable, Drayton, Daniel — 
joined the ranks of sonneteers, and sonnet-sequences 



GENERAL LITERATURE 



211 



became the order of the day. So powerful was the 
poetic instinct abroad in the world that often a man 
of temperament naturally rather dry and ordinary 
would produce perhaps one sonnet of enduring 
beauty, like the little poem of Drayton, " Since 
there's no help, come let us kiss and part." But 
the best sequences, as wholes, are of course by the 
great men, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare. 

These three sets — Sidney's " Astrophel and 
Stella," Spenser's "Amoretti," and the sonnets of 
Shakespeare — well illustrate not only the possible 
range of sonnet expression, but also various types in 
form which the sonnet may assume. 

A sonnet has fourteen lines. This length, arbi- o| r t ^ c e tu 
trary as it seems, appears to have a certain psy- sonnet, 
chological correspondence with the length of time 
during which the mind finds exclusive absorption 
in one feeling, or mood, possible. Sidney's sonnets 
follow in the main Italian usage. This divides the 
sonnet into two parts with a slight break in the 
t middle : the first eight lines, called the octave, and 
the second six lines, called the sestet. The octave 
has only two rhymes. They run abbaabba, so that 
the first end- word rhymes with the last. There may 
be either two or three rhymes in the sestet, arranged 
with more freedom ; only, in the strictest form of 
Italian sonnet, the final couplet is not used. The 
reason for this is that the emotion is diffused through 
the whole sonnet like a heaving wave on the surface 
of the ocean, rising to greatest height in the middle, 
and subsiding at the close into quietude. Spenser 
wrote some Italian sonnets, but more often he illus- 
trated the passion of his day for experiment in verse- 



212 



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forms, for he evolved a type of his own, of which 
the rhymes run ababbcbccdcdee. This, in his use, is 
often very lovely, but it has seemingly not com- 
mended itself, for it has not been used by later 
poets. The Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, 
holds in our language a place side by side with the 
Italian, equally honored. Shakespeare did not invent 
it, but he glorified it. It consists of three quatrains 
run on three sets of rhyme, and a final couplet ; and 
in this form we have still a wavelike movement, only 
it is no longer the movement of a billow that surges 
upward, and then draws home again silently into the 
boundless deep, but of a breaker that crashes with 
overwhelming force and impetus of feeling upon the 
shore. These types still endure ; and sonnets, from 
Elizabeth's day to our own, have remained the most 
beloved form of lyrical expression in England. 

Further and interesting developments awaited the 
lyric of the Renaissance. We shall discuss them 
later. For the present, we leave the lyric here in 
mid-career, and turn to the man to whom belongs, 
even more than to Sidney, the representative place 
among early Elizabethan poets : Edmund Spenser. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Euphues, Ascham's Works, Raleigh's Last Fight of the 
Revenge are in the Arber reprints. A first edition of Hak- 
luyt's Voyages (1589) is in the Boston Public Library. Voy- 
ages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America (selections from 
Hakluyt), Clarendon Press. 

The chief editor and critical authority for Bacon is James 
Spedding. Excellent Life, by Dean Church, in English 
Men of Letters. Essays, in Golden Treasury Series. See arti- 
cle in National Dictionary of Biography, and Introduction to 



GENERAL LITERATURE 



213 



Clarendon Press edition of " Essays." Macaulay's Essay is a 
classic in its way. 

Chief editor and critical authority on Hooker, John Keble. 
See Introduction to Clarendon Press edition of " Ecclesiastical 
Polity," Bk. I, by Dean Church. Izaak Walton's charming 
Life should be read. 

Elizabethan Criticism. See, for good discussion of the de- 
velopment of criticism, Introduction, by C. E. Vaug-han, to the 
volume " English Literary Criticism " in the Warwick Library. 

Elizabethan Translation. See the Tudor Translations, ed. 
by W. F. Henley. Excellent Introduction to North's " Plu- 
tarch," by G. Wyndham. Chapman's noble " Homer " can be 
obtained cheaply in Morley's Universal Library. His " Iliad," 
modernized, is found in the " Knickerbocker Nuggets " Series. 

Elizabethan Lyrics. These have of late been made generally 
accessible in various attractive collections. See A. H. Bullen's 
reprints of "Davison's Poetical Rhapsody" and "England's 
Helicon " ; also his collections of Lyrics from Elizabethan Song 
Books (two series or one condensed volume) ; Lyrics from 
Elizabethan Dramatists, Lyrics from Elizabethan Romances. 
Felix Schelling's Elizabethan Lyrics, in the Athenaeum Press 
Series, is, with its admirable Introduction, the best collection 
for students to own. A charming little edition of " Campion " 
is in the series The Lyric Poets (Dent). Carpenter, English 
Lyric Poetry (1500-1700), Warwick Library. Pastorals, in 
Warwick Library. Tottel's Miscellany, in Arber reprints. 

For minor sonnet-cycles, Drayton, Daniel, Constable, see edi- 
tion by Martha Foote Crowe. For criticisms on the sonnet, 
see T. Watts, article in Encyclopfedia Britannica ; J. Ash- 
croft Noble, The Sonnet in England ; William Sharp, In- 
troduction to Sonnets in the Canterbury Poets ; Hall Caine, 
Sonnets of Three Centuries. See, for study of verse forms, 
Gummere's Poetics. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

The material treated in this chapter would give scope for 
the study of years. Free, rapid, copious reading of as much 
of this noble literature as may be found possible is more 
important than close analytical work for the young student. 
Selected lives from North's "Plutarch," Raleigh's magnificent 
account of the " Fight of the Revenge " (in connection with 
which Tennyson's Ballad may be learned by heart), readings 



214 



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from Hakluyt and Harrison, are quite as thrilling reading 
as Henty for young people, and far more profitable. Lyrics 
should be freely learned by heart and recited in class. The 
element of drill may be supplied by close study of verse-forms, 
and this is the point where the different feet, metres, stanzas, 
etc., most familiar in English poetry may best be discussed. 
The sonnet in particular should be well understood, and exam- 
ples of the Italian and the English sonnet read or repeated in 
class. Sonnets on the sonnet are especially charming to learn : 
Wordsworth, " Scorn not the sonnet " ; Theodore Watts, " Yon 
silvery billows breaking on the beach " ; D. G. Rossetti, " A 
sonnet is a moment'^ monument " ; R. W. Gilder, " What is a 
sonnet? 'tis the pearly shell." J. R. Lowell (Letters, II, 36), 
" You order me, dear Jane, to write a sonnet." 

A topical discussion of the lyrics is attractive. Nature in 
the lyrics, love, classical influences, patriotism, all that consti- 
tutes the fascination of this gay literature, may be brought home 
to the imagination by instances found by each student for him- 
self. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

What England meant to Spenser and Sidney; Early Experi- 
ments in the Art of writing Verses (a study of the experiments 
in classical metres, and the abandonment of them) ; Homer, as 
Elizabeth's Day saw him (a lecture on Chapman) ; Italian 
Influences in Elizabethan Lyric and Romance ; Spanish Influ- 
ences in Elizabethan Lyric and Romance; How the Eliza- 
bethans treated the Classics; Pageantry in the England of 
Elizabeth ; Pastorals, from Greece to England. These can all 
be studied and prepared in the references given. 



CHAPTER VI 



EDMUND SPENSER 

SPENSER wrote what Sidney lived. Just as 
Chaucer's poetry expressed, with charming ease 
and transforming grace, the imaginative life of the 
middle ages, so the poetry of Spenser gathers into 
itself the imaginative life of the Renaissance, and 
flashes it forth to us in myriad forms and hues of 
beauty. 

Poetry, to Spenser, was no mere accomplishment, 
no interlude in an active career, as it was to Wyatt 
and Surrey and Sidney ; it was the serious pursuit 
of his life. This is a significant fact; it is one of the 
first indications of the development of a profession 
of letters. Not that Spenser expected to support 
himself with his pen ; the dawn of that idea was far 
away. He had an active career apart from litera- 
ture ; but poet he was, first and foremost, through- 
out his life. 

I. Spenser's Life 

Spenser was born in London in the year 1552. He 1552-1590. 
was almost an exact contemporary of Raleigh, Sidney, 
and Hooker; he was twelve years older than Shakes- 
peare. His University was Cambridge, and there he 
surely formed connections which led him straight into 
all the eager questioning and critical inquiry that 
marked the early portion of the queen's reign. Also, 

215 



216 



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at the University he heard a great deal of vigorous 
preaching, and echoes of the theological controver- 
sies of the day are in his early work. 

This work began soon after he left Cambridge; 
he was living in the north of England at the time, 
and was enamoured of a fair country lass, his Rosa- 
lind, who spurned his suit. His love, his sorrow, his 
enthusiasm for the queen, his interest in the religious 
parties of his day, his facility in literary experiments, 
and his sensitiveness to the aesthetic influences that 
were abroad, were all illustrated in his first poem, 
siSp 6 " S ne P ner d' s Calendar," published when he was 
herd's twenty-seven years old. The poem is a series of 
dar," pastoral eclogues. They are a little affected, a little 
self-conscious, like the most early Elizabethan work, 
but they show a lyrical grace and an ear for music 
such as no other writer then in England, except possi- 
bly Sidney, possessed. The poem was dedicated to 
Sidney, and Spenser was at one time under the pat- 
ronage of Sidney's uncle, the famous Earl of Leices- 
ter. He lived with the choicest and noblest spirits 
of that great age ; so much we could guess from his 
poems, though we had no external evidence. 

Nevertheless, a large part of his life was passed in 
exile; for in 1580 we find that he went to Ireland, 
where, in one capacity or another, he remained till 
just before his death in 1599. He was secretary to 
one of the sternest statesmen of Elizabeth's reign, 
— Arthur, Lord Grey, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 
whom he celebrated in his " Faerie Queene " as 
Arthegall, the knight of Justice. His business as 
secretary was faithfully performed, and we have a 
prose treatise from him, " A View of the State of 



EDMUND SPENSER 



217 



Ireland," which shows admirable political insight. 
Ireland was a dreary country, and that Spenser 
keenly felt his enforced absence from the rich and 
brilliant life of England is pretty clear. Yet per- 
haps he dreamed all the better for his solitude. 
Once at least that solitude was broken, when in 
1590 he received a visit from one of the most strik- 
ing men of the day, — Sir Walter Raleigh, — and, 
persuaded by Raleigh, returned to England for a 
brief time, bringing with him the first three books 
of the "Faerie Queene." His charming poem, 
" Colin Clout's Come Home again," tells us some- 
thing about this journey, and about his gracious 
reception at court. 

In 1591 Spenser published a collection of short Minor 
poems, of which the most important are a playful i59i? S ' 
allegorical fantasy about a butterfly, called " Muio- 
potmos," and a delightfully colloquial poem called 
"Mother Hubbard's Tale," which shows that our 
gentle poet could be satirical when he liked, and 
that the seamy side of court life was not concealed 
from him. He must have enjoyed his Irish life better 
as time went on: for he forgot at last the cold Rosa- 
lind of his youth, and when he was over forty wooed 
and won a fair Irish girl named Elizabeth. It was in 
June, 1569, that he married her. We are very glad 
of his love, and its happy ending; for it has given 
us some of the sweetest love-poetry in the language, 
the " Amoretti," and that noble marriage hymn, the " Amo- 
" Epithalamium." This great ode, with its perfect "Epi'tnaia- 
purity of passion and the interwoven sweetness of its J^™' 
harmonies, marks the highest level of the Elizabethan 
lyric. 



218 



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The brief remainder of Spenser's life must have 
been happy. Two sons were born to him. In 1595 
he published the second three books of the " Faerie 
Queene," and he was now known as the leading poet 
of England. In 1596 he published " Four Hymns in 
Honour of Love and Beautie." Two of these had 
been written earlier ; the others were now added. All 
breathe a spirit of ecstatic rejoicing in beauty, natu- 
ral and divine. The " Prothalamium," another wed- 
ding ode written in honor of two noble ladies in this 
same year, is the last poem of his that we have. 
For his happiness was not to last. In September, 
1597, the half -savage Irish attacked Spenser's house, 
and burned it to the ground ; Ben Jonson says that 
a baby child of the poet's perished in the flames. 
Spenser escaped to London ; and there, some say in 
extreme poverty, assuredly in a state of shocked dis- 
tress over the terrible scenes he had witnessed, the 
poet of the " Faerie Queene " died in the month of 
January, 1599. The end of his life was like a 
dreary adventure from his own great poem. Some 
say that the last six books of the poem had been 
written, and were burned in the fire ; but this is 
not likely. His work and his life were left incom- 
plete ; he was only forty-six years old. 
Spenser's We learn far more than mere outward facts about 
character. gp enser f rom hi s poetry ; for he was one of the men 
who reveal themselves, not like Shakespeare one of 
the men who conceal themselves, in their work. 
These minor poems alone tell us much about his 
temperament, his tastes, his convictions. They show 
us clearly that he was a gentleman and aristocrat 
and a man of culture ; they show that he had lived 



EDMUND SPENSER 



219 



near great affairs, though if we are shrewd we shall 
suspect that he was rather the observer than the 
actor. There can be no question, however, that the 
man was a devoted and pure-hearted lover, filled with 
the chivalrous spirit of worshipful devotion to women, 
exquisitely sensitive to beauty, a man of pure soul 
and deeply religious temper. He was an idealist and 
a dreamer ; and finally, the " Epithalamium " and 
some cadences in the " Shepherd's Calendar " would 
suffice to tell us that in all that wonderful genera- 
tion there was no other ear so sensitive to hear and 
catch a magical music that seems borne from the 
land of dreams. 

This was the man who wrote the great romantic 
epic of England, the "Faerie Queene." 

II. The " Faerie Queene " 

The object of the " Faerie Queene " was, as Spenser 
himself tells us in his introductory letter to Raleigh, 
" to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous 
and gentle discipline." He who had known Sidney 
was well competent to this great task. The poem 
was to have been in twelve books, but as only six 
were written, the framework is incomplete. We 
know, however, that one figure was to have domi- 
nated the whole ; that is, the figure of Prince Arthur. 
It is our old friend, King Arthur of the Table Round, General 
but quite differently conceived, for Spenser invents the poem, 
a wholly new legend to suit the new age. His Arthur, 
like Shelley's hero in his " Alastor," has while yet a 
youth been visited in sleep by a woman exquisitely 
fair. Waking into a barren and lonely world, he 



220 



THE RENAISSANCE 



has vowed never to rest till he has found and won 
this lady of his dreams. She is a true lady, no 
mere shadow of the night ; her name is Gloriana, 
and she is the Faerie Queene from whom the poem 
is named. All through its bewildering sequences 
Arthur goes seeking her. Again and again, we 
catch glimpses of his radiant, wistful figure flashing 
by, clad in golden armor, with shield of diamond, 
and rainbow plumes nodding on the helmet crowned 
with "the dragon of the great pendragonship," as 
Tennyson puts it. Gloriana holds her court afar. 
Arthur often meets and helps her knights at some 
point of desperate need, but the Faerie Queene her- 
self, within the compass of the books that have come 
down to us, he never finds. 

It is a wondrous country through which Prince 
Arthur wanders ; an enchanted land indeed, where 
mysterious perils beset on every hand the knights 
of Faerie. Yet as we read on, through all the 
glamour of the magic, there seems to gleam on us 
a world strangely familiar. The " Faerie Queene " 
is an allegory ; fairy-land is England in disguise ; 
further than this, it is the spiritual world of human 
experience. Sometimes the allegory is historical, and 
Gloriana stands for Queen Elizabeth, while Prince 
Arthur's features are those of Spenser's great patron, 
the Earl of Leicester; more often it is moral and 
spiritual, and Gloriana represents the ideal of spiritual 
glory which noble manhood has seen in a vision, and 
must forever seek through the wide and mysterious 
world. Thus conceived, the allegory is true to 
Spenser's deepest thought ; with his master Plato 
he firmly believed that there existed a spiritual 



EDMUND SPENSER 



221 



ideal, no mere delusion of the human mind, but an 
eternal reality. The soul of man, which has beheld 
this ideal, but beheld it in vision alone, is on earth 
a wanderer, ever pursuing a quest forever unfulfilled. 
It is by an accident that the poem is incomplete, but 
an accident hardly to be regretted ; for there is truth 
in the incompleteness, which leaves the soul a pilgrim 
still, as does the earlier poem of Langland. 

Arthur, although the hero of the poem, is seen but 
seldom. The different books record the adventures 
of different knights of Gloriana, who represent the 
different virtues of which Arthur, — Magnificence, 
— represents the sum. They form a fellowship akin 
to the Table Round, these knights of Faerie, or, as 
we may call them, the knights of the ideal. Their 
home is the court of the Faerie Queene, thence they 
sally forth, as good knights should, as Raleigh and 
Drake and Sidney and other great men of the day 
went forth from the court of Elizabeth, to subdue 
the enemies of their great queen, to aid the helpless, 
and to establish the reign of purity, honor, and truth. 

It is not necessary to care for Spenser's allegory 
in order to enjoy the poem ; indeed, some of the 
best critics encourage us to disregard the allegory, 
and simply to revel in the beautiful pictures pre- 
sented and the delightful stories told. " The best 
use of the 'Faerie Queene,'" says Lowell, "is as a 
gallery of pictures." At the same time, though it 
is better not to puzzle over the allegory, at least for 
the first reading, the power and beauty of the poem 
rise and fall with the depth of the spiritual meaning, 
and when this meaning grows thin or vanishes, as 
sometimes happens, the poetry is likely to cloy. 



222 



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Summary The first book is the most famous. It tells the 
poem. story of St. George the Red-Cross knight, and of the 
Book i. Lady Una, and a lovely story it is, — one of the love- 
liest in the whole world. St. George in the allegory 
is the knight of Holiness : Una is Truth, as her name 
implies. There is an ecclesiastical allegory, too, and 
an historical, for whoever cares to follow them. We 
may think of Una as the pure reformed Church, and 
Duessa as the Roman Catholic communion if we will : 
or, Duessa may mean to us Mary Queen of Scots. 
Book II. The second book deals with the ethical virtue, 
the virtue of the natural man, Temperance. Tem- 
perance means a more positive thing in Spenser and 
the Renaissance, than it usually means with us : it 
is far more than mere negative abstinence, it is 
that noble power of self-mastery without asceticism 
which antiquity so prized, and which was just re- 
awakening the enthusiasm of the world. Its cham- 
pion Spenser names Sir Guyon. His enemies are 
excess, in every form of violence or worldliness or 
wicked beauty. The second book does not tell so 
complete or thrilling a story as the first, but it is 
full of fine pictures, and of splendid contrasts of 
light and shade. 
Books in The third and fourth books tell, in more discursive 
though charming fashion, the stories of the two 
knights of Friendship, and of Britomart, the virgin 
knight of Chastity. It is significant that Spenser's 
representative of chastity should be no cloistered 
hermit, but a maiden knight, who with a burning 
love in her heart seeks over the world the man who 
shall be her husband. The days of asceticism are 
over : and the Renaissance has no more charming 



EDMUND SPENSER 



223 



story to tell than that of Britomart, her friend 
Amoret, and her lover, the brave Arthegall. 

Arthegall is the knight of Justice, and his adven- Book v. 
tures occupy the fifth book. It is a very stern book, 
for Spenser shared the political sternness of his age. 
One often feels in the " Faerie Queene " how he 
shrank from the savage life of Ireland, and con- 
trasted it with the magnificent order and tranquillity 
where Elizabeth made her sway prevail. The admi- 
ration for the queen expressed by all the poets of 
that time seems fulsome and absurd to us sometimes, 
but we must remember against what background 
they saw her court and her person. Spenser believed 
in keeping order with a strong arm, and his stalwart 
Arthegall is a noble and vigorous figure. 

In striking contrast to the fifth book is the exqui- Book vi. 
site grace and charm of the sixth, which narrates the 
adventures of the young Sir Calidore, the knight of 
Courtesy, and of his love, the fair shepherdess, Pas- 
torella. It is characteristic of that courtly age that 
Courtesy should have an important role among the 
virtues, and there is a sweet playfulness in this book 
which serves as real relief after the moral strenuous- 
ness of much that has preceded. 

Sir Calidore is the last of the knights of Faerie. 
They form a splendid, shining group, clearly differ- 
entiated, as was seldom the case with the knights in 
the old romances. Beside them is a group of women, 
— Una, Belphcebe, Amoret, Britomart, Florimel, Pas- 
torella, — and these women are Spenser's sweetest 
creation. His attitude toward them blends some- 
thing of the mystic reverence of chivalry with the 
aesthetic feeling of the Renaissance, while he seems 



224 



THE RENAISSANCE 



Character 
of the 
poem. 



The 
stanza. 



The rela- 
tion of the 
poem to 



at times to suggest in their stories a little of that 
tender purity of domestic life, that romantic devo- 
tion not only in courtship but in marriage, which 
belongs more distinctively to the modern world. 

The first impression of the " Faerie Queene " is 
one of dazzling, almost confused beauty. In sensuous 
equipment no poet was ever richer than Spenser, and 
it is hard to tell whether one is more affected by 
the appeal to the eye or to the ear, by his harmonies 
or his pictures. 

The poem is written in a perfect stanza, which was 
Spenser's own invention, and is one of the noblest 
gifts that English literature has ever received. Its 
beauty and expressive power have been proved, if 
proof were needed, in the use made of it by later 
poets, Byron, Keats, Shelley, to say nothing of the 
Spenserian imitators of the eighteenth century. It 
is a long stanza of eight pentameter iambic lines 
followed by an Alexandrine at the end, bound 
together in an intimate unity by the rhyme-scheme: 
ababbcbcc. It is probably the longest stanza possible 
compatible with swiftness of narration. It lends 
itself marvellously to descriptions, whether of beauty 
or of gloom ; and in Spenser's hands it is unri- 
valled in melodious variety, dignity, and sweetness. 

Spenser's nature was responsive and receptive 
before it was original; and his poem reflects every 
influence that was playing upon its age. 

In the first place, the bright afterglow of the 
middle ages is in it. Nowhere, not even in the 
Morte d' Arthur do we find so unstained and complete 
an image of what chivalry would fain have been, of 
the perfect ideal of knighthood. Some critics have 



EDMUND SPENSER 



225 



thought that the past was dearer to him than the Mediaeval 
present: He loved obsolete words, and phrases with 
the flavor of the past. " That world which as it 
receded, kissed hands to him alone, had for him 
more charm than the world that proffered her ungar- 
nered spoils to the new settlers," said Aubrey de 
Vere. Certainly, the whole framework of the poem 
is taken from mediaeval romance; and not only the 
framework but much of the spirit. Or rather, let 
us say that Chivalry has risen again in the poem of 
Spenser, — and risen in the body of the Resurrection. 

Yet Aubrey 'de Vere is mistaken if he means that Classic 
Spenser was indifferent to his own day and its inter- temporary 
ests. Hearsay of " fruitfullest Virginia" quick- influence - 
ened his power to imagine fairy-land: and no genius 
of the Renaissance was more enriched than his by the 
recovery of classic literature. The influences of this 
literature, especially of Virgil, are patent in the 
" Faerie Queene." They do not affect the framework, 
but they determine the ornament; and there are little 
myths of Spenser's own, like the charming story of 
the birth of Belphcebe and Amoret, which show how 
he had caught the fashion of the later classical 
writers. 

The third great influence, to be found in the Italian 
"Faerie Queene," beside that of the middle ages 
and the classics, is that of Italy. There first the 
Romantic Epic was perfected, in the work, not long 
preceding Spenser, of Ariosto and Tasso. This 
epic was in a way a development from the mediaeval 
romance, but it was more self-conscious and liter- 
ary. The influence of both these poets, especially of 
Tasso, the graver and more sentimental of the two, 



influence. 



226 



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is all-pervasive alike in the scheme and detail of the 
"Faerie Queene." The rich coloring of Italy is in 
the poem. 

All these different influences blend in Spenser's 
works as they blended in the Renaissance. Some- 
times the result is amusing, as when Parnassus is 
jumbled up with the Mount of Olives, or an angel 
is seriously compared to " Cupido on Idsean Hill." 
Yet one feels no incongruity in the poem. One 
yields, enchanted, to the very lavishness and opu- 
lence of beauty, to the wealth of exquisite pictures 
presented to the inner eye. 

Of course, in one way this very lavishness is a 
fault. The poem seems to many people diffuse, and 
there is no denying that Spenser gets entangled some- 
times in his own manifold inventions. But, all ad- 
missions made, we can only be grateful for this 
wondrous work of art. 
Spenser's Best of all, this seemingly unrestrained luxuriance 
of delights may be enjoyed without qualm or scruple 
of conscience. Often the beauty of this visible 
world has inspired good men with terror. It terri- 
fied the monk who was before Spenser's day, and the 
Puritan who was to come after. In a way, monk 
and Puritan are right. That the world of sense is 
fraught with danger to the spirit no one can study 
the development of the drama in the century which 
followed Spenser and deny. Spenser knows this 
well. He can show us the seductive loveliness be- 
hind which lurks temptation ; life must be militant, 
he tells us ; his knights are ever on their guard, and 
fairy-land is one great battle-field. Yet his imagina- 
tion, pure and healthful as it is sensitive, revels in 



EDMUND SPENSER 



227 



the beauty of this visible universe, the beauty of 
nature, art, and humanity, unchecked by fear. This 
he can permit, because, filled with love of this earth, 
he is filled with love of heaven too, and visible beauty 
is to him a symbol or a sacrament of an unseen 
beauty beyond. The "Faerie Queene," with all its 
classic adornments, is profoundly Christian ; Spenser 
is a son of the Reformation as well as of the Renais- 
sance. Perhaps this happy union could not long 
endure. On the one hand, the Jacobean drama was 
to follow, with its sad revel of the senses ; on the 
other, the harsh literature of Puritanism. But we 
may at least rejoice that, before this parting of the 
ways, we possess one great poem which knows the 
actual world, yet glorifies it, and in which a passion- 
ate love of a visible and of an invisible loveliness 
meet for once without strife, in serene harmony. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

The standard edition of Spenser is by Alexander Grosart. 
Clarendon Press edition of first two books of the " Faerie 
Queene." Edition of same books by Perceval, with notes of 
character more literary, less linguistic, than the Clarendon 
Press. Globe edition, complete works. The " Shepherd's Cal- 
endar," introduced and edited by C. H. Herford. Life of 
Spenser, Dean Church, English Men of Letters. Illuminat- 
ing essays on Spenser will be found in Aubrey de Vere's 
Essays, chiefly on Poetry ; in Edward Dowden's Transcripts 
and Studies ; and in Lowell's Among my Books. 

The " Shepherd's Calendar " and the " Faerie Queene " have 
been illustrated in a delightful way by Walter Crane. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

A student loses what can never be had again who fails to 
read while young at least the first two books of the " Faerie 
Queene." In class adopt Lowell's recommendation, and treat 



228 



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the poem as a gallery of pictures. Let each student show the 
class one figure piece, one landscape, one composition, one bit 
of pageantry. If any members of the class have travelled, and 
know the Italian art of the Renaissance, it is fascinating to 
ascribe different scenes in Spenser to different artists, as the 
description of Belphcebe to Botticelli, of Charissa to Titian, 
of Mammon to Rembrandt or Tintoretto. The student who 
has learned to visualize his Spenser has learned to love him. 
Study next Spenser's appeal to the ear : the melody of the 
poem, the Spenserian stanza ; analyze ; watch treatment in 
other hands — Thomson, Byron, Shelley, Keats; study the use 
of alliteration, of tone color, the pause melody in its variations, 
the scope and the limitations of the stanza. 

After the appeal to the eye and the ear, take the appeal to 
the imagination. Follow the conduct of the narrative, the 
various impersonations, etc. Finally, consider the appeal to 
the spiritual sense, study the allegory, and note the noble 
ethical passages. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

Spenser's Debt to Tasso and Ariosto ; Spenser's Debt to the 
Middle Ages ; Spenser's Debt to the Classics ; Reflection of 
Contemporary English Life in the " Faerie Queene " ; The 
Influence on the Poem of Spenser's Irish Life ; Spenser's Ideal 
of Heroism ; The Later Books of the " Faerie Queene " (a lec- 
ture on each, if possible, presenting a summary of story and 
spiritual conception) ; Spenser the Aristocrat ; The Symbolism 
of Spenser. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE EARLY DRAMA 

I. Development 

WE left the drama still in the form of miracle 
plays, a servant of the Church, though some- 
times rather a boisterous servant. We find it again, 
in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and it has 
become thoroughly secular. How did this happen ? 

It happened essentially because the temper of the 
nation was changed. But we can find links between 
the religious drama of the middle ages and the sec- 
ular drama of the Renaissance. Such links are fur- 
nished by the Moralities and Interludes, which Moraii- 
flourished from the reign of Henry VI on into Eliza- ties ' 
beth's reign. The Moralities were dramatized alle- 
gories ; they brought such characters as Mankind, 
Folly, Mercy, Perseverance, upon the stage. They 
were very dull, but they trained invention in a 
certain way, for they forced their writers to make up 
a story instead of simply adapting the stories of the 
Bible as the miracle plays had done. The Interlude Jnter- 

- 1 - J ludes. 

had less plot than the Morality, but in the hands of 
John Heywood, who wrote for the court of Henry 
VII between 1520 and 1540, the characters were 
drawn from real life and were sometimes very amus- 
ing, and the dialogue was vivacious. The most 
familiar of Heywood's interludes is one called " The 

229 



230 



THE RENAISSANCE 



Four P's," in which a Pardoner, a Palmer, a Pedler, 
and a Potecary try in an entertaining manner who 
can tell the biggest lie. 
Love Moralities and Interludes formed a sort of intel- 

eantry. lectual prelude to the drama. Meanwhile, the 
impassioned liking for pageantry and representa- 
tion which possessed the country in its young pros- 
perity prepared the way on another side. Never was 
the splendor of visible beauty more eagerly craved 
and realized by the imagination. We may see the 
result of this impulse in such ceremonies as marked 
the queen's reception at Kenilworth, or in the 
numerous lord mayor's shows. But there is little 
use in dwelling on these things. It is evident that 
the drama had to come ; the force and feeling of the 
nation at large had to press outward and reproduce 
themselves, through an art form more free, more sen- 
sitively varied, more rich, than any that had hereto- 
fore been known. Even before 1590, even before the 
drama rose to overmastering glory in Shakespeare, 
there was already a lusty dramatic development 
which gave promise of nearly all the phases of 
dramatic expression that were to follow. 



II. Types 

Chronicle 1. The new patriotism, for instance, expressed 
plays. itself in a series of chronicle plays that put roughly 
but vividly before the people the course of English 
history. These plays were epic rather than dramatic 
in character ; they had not much plot or structure ; 
they were simply a visible presentation of great per- 
sonages and great events. The English historical 



THE EARLY DRAMA 



231 



plays of Shakespeare — several of which are written 
in collaboration with other authors — take up and 
continue this tradition. 

2. Comedy of a rude and homely type appears Comedies, 
even before the time of Elizabeth. "Ralph Roister << Ralph 
Doister," the first English comedy, was written by ^°\f t ev ,, 
Nicholas Udall, probably about 1550. It reflects a printed' 
curious blending of influences from the New Learn- 
ing, and from native English life. The plot and the 

types of character are derived from Latin comedy, 

but the effervescent fun, the vigorous dialogue, and 

the setting are full English. " Gammer Gurton's " Gammer 

Needle " is another interesting early comedy. Its Needle.'' 

rollicking humor and vulgar realism present us with 

a capital picture of scenes of village life. 

3. Tragedy soon begins to feel its dark way. Tragedies. 
Sometimes it is stately and frigid, modelled after the 

Latin dramas of Seneca, consisting rather of decla- 
mation than of action. This is the type of "Gorbo- " Gorbo- 
duc," the first tragedy in our tongue, written in acted in 
part by Sackville, a poet whose introduction to the before the 
collection of poems called the " Mirror for Magis- ( i ueen - 
trates " is perhaps the best poetry produced during 
the first twenty years of Elizabeth's reign. Again, 
breaking loose from all restraint of canons of art or 
taste or propriety, the drama raised a cry of almost 
incoherent horror, as in the so-called " Tragedy of 
Blood," of which Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy" is the 
best instance. Shakespeare's supreme tragedies owe 
much to the tragedy that has gone before. They 
turn horror itself into beauty, and leave the spirit 
purified, though aghast ; yet " Hamlet " is but a 
tragedy of blood transformed. 



232 



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Court 4. Almost all these dramatic forms belonged to 

plays. 1 ° 

the people, and were presented to the great Eliza- 
bethan public at large. But the court had a special 
drama of its own. Elizabeth dearly loved a play ; 
fifty-two plays were acted at court between 1568 and 
1570, and the Children of the Queen's Chapel, young 
boy choristers, were organized into a regular com- 
pany of players who acted not only before her Maj- 
esty, but elsewhere. These court dramas are, so far 
as they have come down to us, much what their name 
implies. They have much literary delicacy ; often, 
as in Peele's charming "Arraignment of Paris," they 
partake more of the character of a masque than of 
serious drama. The prettiest that we have — and 
very pretty some of them are — are written in prose 
by Lyly, the author of "Euphues." Shakespeare 
owes much to these, as to all the other dramatic 
types that preceded him. Some of his favorite mo- 
tifs are found in Lyly; Benedick and Beatrice, Rosa- 
lind and Celia, would talk with less grace and sparkle 
had not Lyly shown the possibilities of charm in 
what we may call the drama of good society. 
Verse As to verse forms, the drama during this period 

was trying all kinds of experiments ; it was written 
sometimes in fourteen syllable lines, like intermina- 
ble ballads, sometimes in doggerel, and again some- 
times in the ten-syllable, unrhymed verse, which was 
finally, by a process of natural selection, to prevail in 
dramatic work. 

III. The Pbedecessobs of Shakespeabe 



The Uni- 
versity- 
wits. 



The names of some of the chief dramatists who 
preceded Shakespeare were Peele, Greene, Lodge, 



THE EARLY DRAMA 



233 



Kyd, Nash, and Marlowe. Interesting men they all 
were, though here we can only suggest them by a 
string of names. They were University men, masters 
of arts, and gentlemen ; but they flung away, most of 
them, from decorum and law of all kinds, lived a 
wild Bohemian life in the vivid London of the 
Renaissance, and in several instances died in misery 
or even crime while they were still young. Their 
work is confused, uneven, and tentative, but strange 
gleams of genius shine through it. We understand, 
as we learn of them, how the profession of playwright 
and actor was in evil repute, and already stigmatized 
by the grave Puritan spirit which was rising in Eng- 
land. 

The greatest of all these men, the only one pos- Christo- 
sessed of a high genius, was Christopher Marlowe. Marlowe, 
Marlowe was one of those poets snatched away 1564-1 ° 93 ' 
when they have given the world only - preludings 
of their music, for he was killed in a tavern when 
twenty-nine years old. He was just the age of 
Shakespeare, and it is not irreverent to say that 
Shakespeare at twenty-nine had not achieved so 
much. For Marlowe had a great, a soaring spirit, 
and he could express it in what Ben Jonson rightly 
called a "mighty line." The noblest blank verse 
before Shakespeare is his. He left us a few poems, 
and five tragedies, all written within six years : 
" Tamburlaine," " Dr. Faustus," "The Massacre at 
Paris," "The Jew of Malta," and "Edward II." 
These dramas are, with the exception of " Edward 
II," crude and formless ; they break into the bom- 
bastic or the grotesque in a surprising, disappointing 
manner, yet they leave one out of breath from the 



234 



THE RENAISSANCE 



sense of power they convey, and the yearning they 
suggest for an unattainable beauty and knowledge. 
For Marlowe's was a soul : — 

" Still climbing after knowledge infinite, 
And always roving as the restless spheres." 1 

His drama is one of marvellous promise, not yet of 
fulfilment. The age that could produce a Marlowe 
needed a Shakespeare, and Shakespeare came. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Manly, Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama, Athe- 
naeum Press Series, Vol. II. An excellent edition of Marlowe 
is in the Mermaid Series. A. W. Ward, History of English 
Dramatic Literature (ed. 1899), Vol. IX, Ch. III. J. A. 
Symonds, Shakespeare's Predecessors. Fleay, Biographical 
Chronicle of the English Drama. J. R. Lowell, The Old 
English Dramatists. Dictionary of National Biography. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

It is profitable for a class which is to take up Shakespeare 
to read two or three of the plays in Manly's "Specimens." 
Class analysis should dissect these plays, showing their depar- 
ture from the canons of classic art, their attempts at dramatic 
structure and passion, their crudity, their promise. A play of 
Marlowe might next be read, to show the genius and power 
latent in the nation, and the class will then be prepared to un- 
derstand something of Shakespeare's art in relation to his 
times. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

Any dramatic types or dramatists mentioned in this chapter 
may be made the subject of a separate lecture. 



i " Tamburlaine," Act II, Sc. VII. 



CHAPTER VIII 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 

I. The Elizabethan Stage 
E must not think of the theatre in Elizabeth's 



" » time as if it had been like our own. The 
travelling drama of the middle ages did indeed give 
place to a regular theatre in separate permanent build- 
ings ; before the end of the queen's reign there 
were eleven such buildings licensed in London. 
Companies of professional actors were also gradually 
formed. But the conditions of the stage Were primi- 
tive in the extreme. The public theatres were roofed 
over only in part ; the stage projected into the yard, 
and was surrounded on all sides by spectators, while 
the favored gentlefolk and courtiers actually sat upon 
it, forming part of the show. Scenery was rough ; 
the actors were aided by no illusion of distance or 
perspective, but were simply a raised group in the 
midst of the audience. Costumes, sometimes very 
handsome, were always of the style of the day, and 
it is curious to imagine Shakespeare's ancient Romans 
in Elizabethan ruffs. No women acted, and all the 
women's parts were taken by boys. These were the 
conditions under which were presented 44 The Mid- 
summer Night's Dream," 44 Romeo and Juliet," 44 King 
Lear." They would seem strange, ludicrous even, 




235 



236 



THE RENAISSANCE 



to-day. But after all, what did scenery matter ? 
The alchemy of Shakespeare's imagination was worth 
more to show the essential truth of things than illu- 
sions produced by plaster and paint, and his public 
shared something of his power. An Elizabethan 
audience was probably the most imaginative that 
has ever existed except in ancient Greece. Who 
would not gladly abandon our large stages with 
retreating scenes, our play of artificial lights, our 
realism of setting, if we could as a nation reach that 
fervor of imaginative passion out of which a Shake- 
speare might arise ? 

II. Shakespeare's Life 

1564-1616. We know about Shakespeare's life as much as we 
know about that of many of his contemporaries, 
though not nearly so much as we should like to know. 
He was a country boy, not city-bred like Spenser, 
and his only university was the big world. Strangers 
to-day, visiting his birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon, 
may still pray in the church where he is buried, a 
church quite recent in his day, see with their own 
eyes what the town as he saw it looked like, and 
wander through the region which he knew. It 
is a rich, pleasant, level country that lies around 
Stratford ; the natural home and background for 
human life, with no surprising beauty nor grandeur 
to arrest or absorb the mind. Such as it was, Shake- 
speare knew and loved it well ; this we know from 
many touches in his plays, and also because he 
returned thither when his fame was won, to live 
and die. 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 



237 



Shakespeare's father was a respected tradesman of 
Stratford, and at one time mayor of the town. It 
is interesting to notice that during his year of office 
the corporation for the first time entertained actors 
at Stratford ; but William was only four years old 
at this time. The family fortunes seemingly con- 
tinued good till he was a boy of about thirteen, but 
after that time they declined and the family sank 
into debt. The one thing we know for certain about 
his life at this time is that when he was only eighteen 
years old he married a woman named Anne Hatha- 
way, eight years older than himself, and that before 
he was twenty-two three children were born to him. 
When he was about twenty-three years old, he left 
Stratford and his wife and little family, and went 
up to London to try his fortunes. 

Shakespeare attached himself to the stage, at first, 
if tradition speaks true, as a call-boy or even in a 
lower capacity. But very soon he became an actor, 
and continued to act till late in life, being one of the 
company appointed king's players at the accession 
of James I. We all long to know the parts that 
Shakespeare acted, but as far as tradition tells us 
they were very minor parts ; the Ghost in " Ham- 
let," for instance, and old Adam in " As You Like 
It." Just when he began to make plays we do 
not know, but by 1592 the references of a jealous 
rival show that he was already known as a drama- 
tist. For a while, however, he probably wrote noth- 
ing wholly his own, but was employed, after the 
fashion of the time, in furbishing up old plays. By 
the time he was thirty-four we find references which 
prove him to have been a respected and fairly pros- 



238 



THE RENAISSANCE 



perous man, and we have various indications that he 
restored the fortunes of his house, bought property 
at Stratford, and was a shrewd man of business. His 
early love for Stratford he apparently never lost, for 
to the little town he returned when he was about 
forty-five years old, and lived there as a country 
gentleman till his death, in 1616. His daughters 
survived him ; his only son, Hamnet, had died when 
eleven years old. 

This is a dry record. And yet Shakespeare's life 
was really one of the most varied and eventful ever 
known by man. For within the compass of his mind 
were lived out the experiences of Falstaff and Mac- 
beth, of Lear and Beatrice, of Titania and Cleopatra, 
of Juliet, Prospero, and Hamlet. Their jests, their 
joys, their agonies, their anxieties, their passions, were 
all explored by him, and he doubtless knew much about 
them all which he never saw fit to tell. The inner 
world is, when we come to think of it, the only real 
world for everybody. But it is to be questioned 
if any other man ever lived in an inner world where 
such marvellous things happened as in Shakespeare's. 

We dare to feel that we draw near to Shake- 
speare's own personal experience as we follow the 
line of development in his dramas. To attempt 
this is indeed somewhat precarious, for the drama 
deliberately veils personality instead of revealing it, 
as the lyric claims to do. Yet a man's character and 
experience may be partly judged by the society he 
chooses, and Shakespeare was assuredly not in the 
same mood when he lived in his dreams with Titania 
as when he lived with King Lear. 

Let us follow his works in order, remembering 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 



239 



that the detail of the chronology is often debatable, 
but that critics are fairly well agreed to-day on the 
main divisions or groupings of the plays. 



III. Shakespeare's Work 

By the time Shakespeare was twenty-nine he had First 
produced seven plays and two long poems. This poems and 
was no inconsiderable achievement ; yet had he died ®^ 
at twenty-nine, like Marlowe, we should not have ^ ^ he 
regretted his loss keenly, for this work, though shop." 
clever in the extreme, was not immeasurably above 
the average level of the day. 

Very likely Shakespeare himself cared more for 
the poems than for the plays. The names of them 
were " Venus and Adonis " and " The Rape of 
Lucrece." They show the literary tastes of the 
time : the fastidious choice of phrase, the quest for 
sweetness in movement, the classic sentiment, often 
caught at second-hand. They are not so poetic, 
not so powerful, as a youthful poem of Marlowe's, 
" Hero and Leander." Almost the only promise of 
the great dramatist in them is in an occasional con- 
creteness and freshness of style, as in a famous de- 
scription of horses found in " Venus and Adonis," a 
description which at once shows the author to be a 
man who could look straight at fact. 

The probable plays of the period are : " Titus 
Andronicus," a tragedy of blood ; " Henry VI," a 
historical chronicle play in three parts ; " Love's 
Labor's Lost," a bright society comedy, after the 
fashion of Lyly : " The Comedy of Errors," modelled 
upon a Latin play of Plautus : and " The Two Gen- 



240 



THE RENAISSANCE 



tlemen of Verona," a romantic comedy from an 
Italian source, in which Shakespeare's power in 
creating character first clearly appears. Several of 
these dramas were probably old plays which Shake- 
speare touched up ; and the mere list shows how 
modestly he was learning his trade, making available 
material more effective for the stage, and following 
on the conventional dramatic lines. The dramas of 
this time show a growing command of style, and a 
surprising versatility and facility in dramatic ex- 
periments. 

Second It is quite different with the next group, written 

"TnThe when Shakespeare was between twenty-nine and 
world. ' thirty-six years old. Here the great genius appears, 
greater in knowledge of the human heart and in 
command of poetry than any other Englishman of 
his age. Shakespeare had found himself. " A Mid- 
summer Night's Dream," " Romeo and Juliet," " Rich- 
ard III," " Richard II," "King John," " The Merchant 
of Venice," "Henry IV," in its two parts, "Henry V," 
"The Taming of the Shrew," "The Merry Wives of 
Windsor," "As You Like It," "Much Ado About 
Nothing," and "Twelfth Night," are the dramas 
commonly assigned to this period. They comprise, 
as will be seen, six historical plays, one tragedy, and 
seven comedies. 

The historical plays of this group are the most 
notable expression of her national consciousness 
that England has ever had. Some of them have 
archaic elements derived from the old chronicle 
plays ; they seem to us at times operatic, or lyrical 
rather than dramatic. But from these elements the 
later plays, notably "Henry IV," and "Henry V," 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 241 



escape into the large air of reality. They manifest 
triumphantly the breadth of Shakespeare's knowledge 
of men. At his touch, living persons rise up from 
the dry records of history. We no longer listen to 
moral harangues, or didactic lessons drawn from the 
fates of nations, as in "Gorboduc"; we move about 
easily, in the tavern, on the battlefield, in the coun- 
cil chamber, face to face with our fellow-men. 
It was a joyous and warmly human heart which 
discovered Falstaff ; it was a heart that thrilled 
responsive to the image of grave heroic nobleness, 
which divined in history and made live forever that 
splendid English picture of manhood charged at once 
with energy and humility, King Henry V. Yet in 
the remaining dramas of this time we find a still 
greater treasure. Two of these dramas are rather 
boisterous comedies, and incite us less to joy than 
to laughter : " The Merry Wives of Windsor " and 
"The Taming of the Shrew." Those that remain 
— "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Romeo and 
Juliet," "The Merchant of Venice," "Much Ado 
About Nothing," "As You Like It," and "Twelfth 
Night" — are of a different type. They manifest to 
us the fullest beauty consistent with an actual hu- 
manity that our literature knows. They are radiant 
with happy grace, with sparkling wit, with feeling 
tender, gay, and pure. The world they show us is 
a world in which we may rejoice, and the characters 
they make known are people who endear human 
nature. Shakespeare wrote at this time only one 
tragedy, and in " Romeo and Juliet," the beauty of 
poetry and feeling overpowers pain. We leave the 
tomb over which the bereft fathers clasp their hands 



242 



THE RENAISSANCE 



in reconciliation, grieving indeed, but exulting also, 
in a loveliness sealed eternal by death. 

Five of these six dramas are placed in Italy, the land 
of romance. Almost all the chief actors are young ; 
age when it appears is only a foil, and the world is 
to youth and love. However the plot tangles, we 
trust that joy will follow ; that lovers bewildered by 
fairy pranks will straighten out their sentiments in 
the morning, that maidens will escape their exile in 
strange lands, lay aside their masculine costume, and 
win at last their hearts' desire, that slanders will be 
disabused, and a way found to avoid all the tragedy 
that threatens. For threats of tragedy these dramas 
give, just enough to impart zest to merriment and 
character to bliss. A grim figure like Shylock may 
at rare intervals pass across our vision, but he serves 
only to enhance the revel of sumptuous joy and gen- 
erous friendship. Sorrow is in this world of Shake- 
speare's early comedies, because it is in the world of 
real human life ; but harmony is their outcome. They 
reflect and glorify the earlier mood of the Eliza- 
bethan age ; the ecstasy in living, the light-hearted 
recognition of a blessedness at the heart of the 
world. 

Transi- But here we must stop for a little. " Twelfth 
Night," the last play of this period, was acted in 
1601 and probably written in 1600. It is a delight- 
ful and masterly summary, as it were, of all the 
motifs and the dramatic elements of which, in the pre- 
ceding dramas, Shakespeare had discovered the 
charm. The queen had only three more years to live. 
Shakespeare himself was now thirty-six years old, 
and a man married at eighteen does not feel young 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 



243 



at thirty-six. We should know without being told 
that "Much Ado About Nothing" and "Twelfth 
Night" were the work of an older man than "A 
Midsummer Night's Dream." A little graver note 
is creeping in, a touch of irony at times, almost a 
stealthy shadow. We long to know what was hap- 
pening to the man himself as these bright plays 
flowed from him. 

It is a great temptation to think that we can tell. The son- 
For at this time, and perhaps during the following 
years, Shakespeare was writing a series of sonnets. 
Sonnets are lyrics, and lyrics purport to be self -reveal- 
ing. They were the literary fashion of the time, yet 
we know that, under some of the sonnet-sequences, 
as under Spenser's, there was a real story. Whether 
or not there was such a story here we cannot tell. 
Critics wrangle about it, and not only critics but 
poets. 

" With this key, 
Shakespeare unlocked his heart/' 

says Wordsworth ; and Browning retorts : — 
" Did Shakespeare ? If so, the less Shakespeare he." 

If we take the sonnets at their face value and in 
their commonly accepted order, they seem to pass 
from light, elaborate, literary exercises into poems 
of grave and deep passion. The first series, of 126, 
is addressed to a young man, Shakespeare's dear and 
cherished friend ; the second series, of 27, to a 
woman. Who this woman is, we do not know, and 
concerning the identity of the friend of the first 
series, there has been much discussion. We know 



244 



THE RENAISSANCE 



that Shakespeare had by this time won the patron- 
age of the Earl of Southampton, a brilliant noble- 
man, nine years younger than himself, to whom he 
had dedicated his narrative poems ; and most critics 
agree on him as the friend to whom the sonnets 
were addressed. We can easily see how the beauti- 
ful nobleman — for Southampton's portrait shows 
him to have possessed great beauty — may have fasci- 
nated the poor player. But the story of the sonnets 
is sad; for Shakespeare's mistress seems to have 
betrayed him for his beloved friend, and he was left 
doubly desolate. Spenser's love story ran melodi- 
ously smooth ; Sidney faced indeed sharp tempta- 
tion, but looked upward at least to his beloved, 
rejoiced in her virtue, and was purified by her pur- 
ity. Shakespeare, if we may trust the sonnets, knew 
that bitter experience — a love that does not aspire 
but stoops, a passion for one unworthy. 

Whether the story of the sonnets is literally true 
or not does not after all so much matter. What they 
incontrovertibly tell us is that Shakespeare, in mid- 
dle life, whether through personal or imaginative 
experience, had plunged his plummet into the tumul- 
tuous depths of human agony and sin. The thought 
that beauty, life, even loyalty itself, are mutable and 
vanish into darkness, wrings the poet's heart ; and 
the one consolation to which he desperately clings is, 
not that there is another country where decay enters 
not, but that even human love can rise triumphant in 
constancy over faithlessness and change : — 

" Love is not love 
Which alters when it alteration finds 
Or bends with the remover to remove : 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 



245 



no ! it is an ever fixed mark 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; 

It is the star to every wandering bark 

Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken." 

This is the highest habitual level reached by the 
sonnets ; they reveal a mental state which none of 
the moods of cheerful or sentimental feeling that 
Shakespeare had so far expressed in his dramas 
could comfort or relieve. 

" Out of the Depths " is the heading given by Mr. Third 
Dowden to the next great group of plays. They in- "Out of 
elude three dark and ironical comedies, quite differ- depths." 
ent in tone from the comedies that preceded, " All's 
Well that Ends Well," "Measure for Measure," and 
" Troilus and Cressida " ; and the great tragedies 
"Julius Caesar," "Hamlet," "Othello," "Lear," 
"Macbeth," "Antony and Cleopatra," " Coriolanus," 
"Timon of Athens." All these plays were written 
when Shakespeare was between thirty-six and forty- 
four years old — between 1600 and 1608. His worldly 
fortunes were improving at this time; he was part 
owner from 1599 of the Globe Theatre, and we 
have evidence that he did not neglect practical 
affairs. But what must his inner life have been ! 

None of these plays are from English history ; 
three are drawn from the stern annals of Rome, 
which Shakespeare knew through North's noble 
translation of Plutarch. The comedies are all sad- 
der if possible than tragedy. The tragedies comprise 
the greatest tragic work, apart from the dramas of 
iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, that the world 
has ever seen. 

It is almost impossible to discuss Shakespeare's 



246 



THE RENAISSANCE 



tragedies. One wishes to bow before them, awe- 
struck into silence ; for they reveal the mysterious 
depths of life. Such depths are sometimes, perhaps, 
sounded in youth, but not often ; the persons in 
these dramas have advanced farther on their life's 
journey than in those of the last period. The plays 
as a rule disregard the shallow law of unity in time, 
and cover a wide sweep of years, showing us the 
greater unity that binds together in phases of one 
experience, crises of youth, of middle life, of age. 
Hamlet is young, though not so young as Romeo, 
but it is the sin of mature man and woman that 
drives him to a madness only half simulated. Mac- 
beth, when the drama opens, is beset by that tempta- 
tion of middle life, ambition ; and his way of life is 
fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf, before the story 
reaches its tragic end. Othello himself tells us that 
he is " declined into the vale of years." Cleopatra 
is no novice in winning the hearts of men. And 
" Lear," finally, is the supreme and naked tragedy of 
deserted old age. 

These dramas face steadily the worst that man can 
conceive of sin and shame. They show us tragedy 
deeper far than that of Shakespeare's early story 
of the star-crossed lovers, the helpless brightness of 
whose youth and love was overtaken by the swift 
shadow of death. For here we contemplate moral 
wreck rather than material disaster : character is 
destiny, — character how often weak, passionate, per- 
verse, — and all the sorrow to which the dramas 
move springs direct from human folly, wilfulness, or 
sin. 

The first two tragedies, "Julius Caesar" and 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 



247 



4 4 Hamlet," have been called the tragedies of thought. 
They reveal a new Shakespeare, a man who has re- 
flected profoundly and gravely, though the philo- 
sophical element, strong in both dramas, is merged, 
as it ought to be, in concrete human experience. Sad 
though these dramas are, they uplift us because 
each shows a protagonist whom we may love and 
honor. Yet Brutus and Hamlet both fail in fulfilling 
their appointed task. Noble as they are, a profound 
inner weakness makes it impossible for either to be 
an adequate instrument in the restoration of a broken 
harmony. Their failure, not their death, is the 
tragedy of these plays. 

In the other dramas of this period, we trace the 
titanic ravages of passion; we are called upon to 
watch, not weakness only, but sin. Dark characters 
appear, such as the bright imagination of the younger 
Shakespeare never could have conceived : an Iago, a 
Regan, a Goneril. The main characters never pass 
out of the pale of our sympathy ; while we condemn 
Macbeth and his wife, Othello, Lear, we do not cease 
to love them ; yet we recognize how the terrible 
sorrow, which they both inflict and bear, springs from 
their own wrong-doing. In all these dramas, holy 
human ties are wrenched asunder by selfish passion, 
leaving a world in ruins. In Macbeth, these are the 
ties that hold a subject loyal to his king ; in Othello, 
the bonds of marriage ; in Lear, the tender bonds of 
kindred, violated first by the wilful king, then, in 
retaliation inevitable though fearful, by his unnatural 
daughters. The theme in " Antony and Cleopatra " 
and " Coriolanus" is in general the same, for the claims 
of country are subordinated to the insistent demands 



248 



THE RENAISSANCE 



of personal desire. Law thus is disregarded, and we 
see exposed the elemental forces of wild passion, 
making their fierce way toward chaos. We skirt the 
borders of madness ; and in the moral gloom that 
hangs over these great tragedies, strange visitants, 
witches and ghosts, gather out of the shadow. 

Why is it a greater happiness than pain to know 
these heart-breaking dramas ? Why do we love to 
see them on the stage, to read them in our closets ? 
The answer would lead us far into the whole phi- 
losophy of art and its relations to life. The truth is 
that we all crave to know what life really is, whether 
the knowledge make us glad or not, for life, even at 
its darkest, is sacred. And there is one reassuring 
thing about these storm-tossed dramas of Shake- 
speare's. Never for one moment does he let us 
lose sight of the difference between good and evil. 
The actors may lose sight of it ; may cry in weari- 
ness and horror that " all best things are now con- 
fused to ill " ; all the persons in the play may be 
bewildered, invaded by the worst of evils, moral 
confusion : not we. There is indeed little vision of 
the heavens suggested by these dramas ; such vision, 
in Shakespeare, we never find. But the moral values 
remain august and intact, and the Law of Right, 
inexorable, terrible, yet awfully luminous, shines 
through their earth-born murkiness with a lustre 
never darkened nor dimmed. 
Fourth During this period, we must notice, the whole 
^ r on P the aspect of English literature had changed. The 
heights." queen had died; James I was on the throne. Silent 
were Shakespeare's early contemporaries : Marlowe, 
Greene, Peele, and Lodge. Others were rising to 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 



249 



take their place: Ben Jonson, Dekker, Heywood, 
Midclleton, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, and 
Tourneur. The nation was at the height of 
imaginative power and production, but a shadow 
was invading it ; the lyric was becoming thought- 
freighted, often grave and sad ; philosophical prose 
was developing. Shakespeare's tragedies are by no 
means the darkest expression of life which was to be 
produced by the literature of the Renaissance ; for 
even when they lead us into a gloom of midnight, 
the eternal stars shine out, and with almost no excep- 
tion they end with a hint of a new dawn. Yet their 
sadness is part of a general mood of sadness, which 
was succeeding in England the ecstasy, the sponta- 
neous and light-hearted joy, of the early Renaissance. 

But in sadness Shakespeare's mighty spirit did not 
permanently dwell. It skirted madness and despair, 
but passed them by, and emerged into a noble sanity. 
The plays of his last period prove this ; this period 
lasts from 1608 to 1616, the year of his death. It 
includes two inferior plays, probably written in col- 
laboration with some one else, " Timon of Athens," 
and " Pericles," and these seem to express exhaustion 
of creative power, and a sort of helplessness rare in 
Shakespeare ; but during these last years he gave 
us also three dramas illumined with fair and peace- 
ful light : " Cymbeline," " The Tempest," and " The 
Winter's Tale." It is probable that these plays were 
written at Stratford, where, during the later years of 
his life, he seems mostly to have lived. There is no 
record directly connecting him with theatrical life 
after 1609, but there are various traces of his presence 
in the country. 



250 



THE RENAISSANCE 



The dramas of this time — including Henry VIII, 
of which Fletcher probably wrote a large portion — 
show the master craftsman ; yet there is in them 
something that makes us feel the author withdrawn 
from the stage. They gain less from acting, more 
from reading, than the earlier plays. Shakespeare 
writes no longer tragedies of passion, of ambition, 
jealousy, voluptuousness, or the ravings of madness ; 
he reverts to the serener themes of high romance. 
There is less richness of imagination and fancy, less 
spontaneous poetry, than in the comedies of his eager 
youth; but, reading these plays, we rejoice with 
Wordsworth in "years that bring the philosophic 
mind," feeling with him that, though the first splendor 
of life's fresh dawn soon fades, there is compensation 
in the sober colors of " the clouds that gather round 
the setting sun." Once more Shakespeare writes of 
youth ; youth not now self-sufficiently absorbing the 
scene, but interpreted by a loving age, that touches 
its bright beauty with hands of tender benediction. 
Perdita among her flowers, Miranda on her desert 
isle, true-hearted Imogen in her high mountain refuge, 
do not fascinate us with charm, sweet or baleful, like 
the earlier heroines from Juliet to Cleopatra ; they 
are described with a spirit of tender and touching 
affection, but it is the spirit of the father and the 
sage, rather than that of the lover. 

Over all these dramas rests an exquisite calm. 
They have been called the dramas of reconciliation, 
for as the plays of the preceding period deal with 
ties torn asunder, these in every case deal with ties 
renewed and harmony restored. We are glad that 
it was on such pictures as these that the last thoughts 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 



251 



of Shakespeare dwelt. One of these dramas, " The 
Tempest," is in particular of peculiar beauty. It 
is a symbolic poem, baffling, yet alluring us with 
subtlest hints of hidden spiritual meaning ; and it 
interests us profoundly as the one important excur- 
sion of our greatest realist into the realm of mys- 
ticism. At the very outset of his artistic career, 
Shakespeare had written another fairy drama, and 
we see all he had learned about life if we compare 
" The Midsummer Night's Dream" and " The Tem- 
pest." On the whole, it is fair to conclude that 
he had gained, not only in insight, but in abiding 
joy. In the early poem humanity is quite at the 
mercy of fairy sport and play, helpless to direct 
even its emotions, bewildered and befooled at every 
turn ; in the later, Prospero, the great and wise 
magician, governs with serene power the elemental 
forces, and bends their freakish wills at his pleasure 
to beneficent human service. Manhood has become 
to Shakespeare's older eyes more potent and august 
than to his youth. This play, and all the plays of 
this period, are on the heights indeed, knowing, but 
knowing from above, the passions of earth. So closed 
the work of Shakespeare ; and his last recorded mood 
was a mood of large sanity and hard-won peace. 



IV. Shakespeare's Art 

Shakespeare's dramas are, next to our authorized 
translation of the Bible, the crowning glory of the 
English tongue. And yet, of what we sometimes 
mean by originality they have but little. The 
great dramatist continued in every respect the tra- 



252 



THE RENAISSANCE 



ditions that had preceded him, the forms of tragedy, 
history, comedy, that earlier dramatists had evolved. 
His plots were almost all borrowed from some well- 
known source. " Love's Labor's Lost " and " The 
Tempest " are, according to present critical knowl- 
edge, the only stories which he probabty invented as 
a whole. More than this, he not only followed earlier 
writers with docility, he took up many popular motifs 
of his day. A ghost crying revenge, for instance, 
was a stock character of the Elizabethan stage; 
Shakespeare introduced him in " Hamlet " and again 
in "Julius Caesar." Nor was he contented with 
copying other people ; he continually copied himself, 
and when he had found an episode, like a heroine 
disguised in boy's clothes or a case of mistaken 
identity, pleasing to his public, he fearlessly used the 
same thing over and over. 
Hisorigi- And yet, what does all this matter? It simply 
goes to prove how the individuality of the greatest 
genius is rooted in that of the race. But the pecu- 
liar power of the genius is that he raises the dead to 
life. Shakespeare breathed into these old stories, 
and men and women, in their habit as they lived, arise 
and walk before us. What though Viola repeat the 
situation of Rosalind? She is not Rosalind, but a 
new creation, fresh with an immortal morning. How 
did Shakespeare make his people live? That is 
his secret. The daring temper of exploration that 
marked the Renaissance was in him turned full 
upon the world of men and women ; and wonderful 
was the result of his search. How did he know that 
Desdemona breathed out her soul in a lie to exoner- 
ate her husband, murmuring, when asked to name 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 



253 



her murderer, " Nobody ; I myself ; farewell " ? 
How did he know that Lady Macbeth, not yet guilty, 
started at the innocent word of the messenger, " The 
king comes here to-night," with the strange cry, 
" Thou'rt mad to say it " ? How did he know that 
Lear sighed, in the midst of his dying, remorseful 
sorrow over the corpse of Cordelia, " Prithee, undo 
this button " ? He knew because he was Shake- 
speare. He did not try, like Dante, to penetrate 
spiritual mysteries, though he keenly felt their pres- 
ence ; he was content to discover and record the 
actual contents of the consciousness of men. 

The verse of Shakespeare follows with exquisite His 
fitness the changes in his ethical mood and dramatic 
method. His style is always concrete ; that is, he 
writes with his eye, not on his idea of the object, 
but on the object itself. At first he uses frequent 
rhyme, his verse is delicately finished, each line is 
end-stopped or complete in itself ; it is a style fitted 
to render with artificial perfection the fulness of 
charm and grace. As he goes on his manner changes. 
Rhyme becomes less and less frequent. Weak and 
light endings give variety to the blank verse, and, as 
it flows onward, the force of thought presses unnot- 
ing over such small barriers as the ends of lines, and 
we have what is called overflow verse. The move- 
ment is stronger, freer, more broken in cadence, and 
the verse falls into larger harmonic groups indepen- 
dent of the line division, and reading at times like 
noble prose. The style is charged and weighted with 
meaning to the point of obscurity, pressing nearer 
and nearer to thought, till it seems at times strug- 
gling to reveal the consciousness that lies below all 
power of speech. 



254 THE RENAISSANCE 

Shake- If Shakespeare's work does not seek to penetrate 
climax of* spiritual mysteries, it is none the less wholly 
drama! 10 noble. He dares to show us a world shaken and 
swept by temptation and sorrow, but it is a world in 
which the moral proportions are sound. His work 
is never morbid, unless in one or two inferior 
plaj^s like "Troilus and Cressida" and "Timon of 
Athens " ; it is never shallow. The great roman- 
tic drama vindicated in him its claim to freedom. 
For romantic art rejected all those safeguards of 
sanity and order afforded by the canons of classic 
drama ; it claimed a right to obey its own free im- 
pulse and to roam unchecked throughout the universe. 
Again and again, in lesser men, both before and after 
Shakespeare, liberty degenerated into license, and the 
result was an art painfully uneven, full of flashes of 
power and beauty, but often sesthetically extravagant 
and morally unsound. Not so in the drama of Shake- 
speare. There, romantic art developed an inner 
strength, a moral harmony and poise, that make it 
healthful as it is free, inspiring as it is profound. 
We rise from Shakespeare's dramas assured that 
human life is a greater thing and more worth living 
than ever we have realized before. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

The Globe Shakespeare. The Temple Shakespeare (single 
plays, in compact, attractive form). Furness's Variorum 
Shakespeare, in publication. Rolfe's edition, Clarendon Press 
edition, single plays edited for students. Edward Dow- 
den, Shakespeare Primer; Shakespeare, His Mind and Art. 
Sidney Lee, Life of Shakespeare. Barrett Wendell, Will- 
iam Shakespeare. Halliwell-Phillips, Outlines of the Life 
of Shakespeare. H. W. Mabie, Life of Shakespeare. Cole- 
ridge, Notes and Lectures on the Plays of Shakespeare. G. 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 255 



Brandes, William Shakespeare, a critical study. Abbott, 
Shakespearean Grammar. G. L. Craik, The English of Shake- 
speare. Swinburne, A Study of Shakespeare. Carlyle, 
Heroes and Hero-Worship. W. Hazlitt, Characters of Shake- 
speare's Plays. K. Moulton, Shakespeare as a Dramatic 
Artist. Bennett, Master Skylark. Black, Judith Shake- 
speare. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

It is better to read Shakespeare than to criticise him. If 
three plays are read, let one be historical ("Julius Csesar," 
"Henry V"), one a comedy ("The Merchant of Venice," "As 
You Like It"), one a tragedy ("Macbeth," "King Lear"). 
Part reading in class is almost always enjoyable, and students 
above the age of twelve can learn by heart, and act simply, 
with or without costume, various scenes, if not entire plays. 
Of course an infinite number of questions for discussion come 
up during the reading, and it is better to let them arise natu- 
rally than to attempt a formal plan of work. 



CHRONOLOGY OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 

The exact chronology of Shakespeare's plays is very uncertain. 
Critics, however, are coming to agree about the general order and 
grouping of the dramas, with a few marked exceptions. The table 
given below is based on the authority of Sidney Lee. It will be 
seen that in several cases, notably in the case of "Titus Androni- 
cus," of "Romeo and Juliet," of "Midsummer Night's Dream," 
of "All's Well that Ends Well," the order is different from that 
suggested in the text, where the more common, but less recent, 
theory of Edward Dowden is followed. The general line of treat- 
ment in the text is not, however, affected by these changes. 

The first folio, published in 1623, is the first trustworthy author- 
ity for the text of many of the plays, and contains all the plays, 
except "Pericles." The quartos are in some instances merely 
actors' copies surreptitiously printed, though of course they have 
their value. 



256 THE RENAISSANCE 



Shakespeare's Plays 



uate 01 


Publication of 


Title 


Composition 


First Quarto 


1591 


1598 


Love's Labor's Lost 


1591 




The Two Gentlemen of Verona 


1592 




Comedy of Errors 


1592 


1597 


Romeo and Juliet 


1592 




1, 2, 3, Henry VI 


1593 


1597 


Richard III 


1593 


1597 


Richard II 


1593 


1600 


Titus Andronicus 


1594 


1600 (2 editions) 


The Merchant of Venice 


1594 




King John 


1594-5 


1600 (2 editions) 


Midsummer Night's Dream 


1595 




All's Well that Ends Well 


1595 




The Taming of the Shrew 


1597 


1598 


1 Henry IV 


1597 


1600 


2 Henry IV 


1597 


1602 


The Merry Wives of Windsor 


1598 


1600 


Henry V 


1599 


1600 


Much Ado about Nothing 


1599 




As You Like It 


1600 




Twelfth Night 


1601 




Julius Caesar 


1602 


1603 


Hamlet 


1603 


1609 (2 editions) 


Troilus and Cressida 


1604 


1622 


Othello 


1604 




Measure for Measure 


1606 




Macbeth 


1606 


1608 (2 editions) 


King Lear 


1607 




Timon of Athens 


1608 


1609 (2 editions) 


Pericles 


1608 




Antony and Cleopatra 


1609 




Coriolanus 


1610 




Cymbeline 


1611 




A Winter's Tale 


1611 




The Tempest 


1611 




Henry VIII (with Fletcher) 
The Two Noble Kinsmen (a few 
touches are Shakespeare's) 



CHAPTER IX 



THE DECLINE OF THE DRAMA 

I. Grouping and Chronology 

SHAKESPEARE overtops all his companions ; yet 
his work is only the richest expression of the 
dramatic impulse that was controlling England. 
He had contemporaries and successors only less won- 
derful than himself. Upward of seven hundred 
plays were acted in England before the end of the 
reign of King James, and a surprising proportion 
of those that have come down to us have some 
mark of genius. 

We can tell exactly when the last ripple of this 
dramatic upheaval died away ; for in 1642, when the 
Civil War broke out, the theatres were closed. 
Puritan England had other interests than play- 
acting, and other matters whereon to exercise her 
imagination. The drama of the Renaissance ran its 
great course in about fifty years. 

The chief dramatists who wrote during the first 
quarter of the seventeenth century were Ben Jon- 
son, Chapman, Dekker, Heywood, Beaumont and 
Fletcher, Webster, Tourneur, Middleton, Ford, Mas- 
singer, and Shirley. As we follow them, we take a 
short journey in time but a long one in spirit ; for 
we pass from the gay mood and careless art of the 
Elizabethan dramatists to the grave and often mor- 

257 



258 



THE RENAISSANCE 



bid attitude, the more conscious art, that marks the 
Jacobean period of English Literature. It is much 
the same journey that we have just pursued with 
Shakespeare, from the " Midsummer Night's Dream " 
to " King Lear," only it explores further reaches of 
darkness, and does not emerge, as does the drama of 
Shakespeare, into light and peace. 

None of these men began to work till the last five 
years of the sixteenth century, yet some of them 
seem, in their loose technique and free joyous spirit, 
to belong rather to the Elizabethan than to the 
Jacobean period. Such are especially Dekker and 
Heywood. Others, though not really so much 
younger, belong to another generation. Such, for 
instance, is Beaumont, who died at the age of thirty- 
one, in the same year with Shakespeare, yet presents 
an art, despite its beauty, far advanced toward decay. 
The brevity of the whole development is patent when 
we find Dekker, who represents its first stage, writ- 
ing a drama, the " Virgin Martyr," in collaboration 
with Massinger, who is a dramatist of its very close. 
It is best to group all these men under the title of 
the Jacobean dramatists. 



II. Ben Jonson 

Ben The first name that we meet in this great group is 

1573-1637. that of "rare Ben Jonson," — Shakespeare's junior 
by only nine years, leader of a rival school. Jon- 
son, a sturdy recalcitrant from romance just when 
romance was scoring its greatest triumphs, did his 
best all through his life of sixty-four years to 
establish and maintain in England the classical school 



THE DECLINE OF THE DRAMA 259 



of dramatic art. No one can read Ben Jonson with- 
out being amazed at the weight and force of his 
intellect ; imagination and passion are conspicuous 
by absence. The only light his famous comedies 
and his stately Roman plays kindle in the mind is 
admiration, a sort of Aurora Borealis, that illumines 
but does not warm. They proceed from analysis, 
not from sympathy. The title of the first was, 
" Every Man in His Humour," and Jonson's art 
always gave humors, not men, personified traits set 
moving on the stage rather than complex men and 
women. His work reminds one of the method used 
later in the seventeenth century by Moliere in 
France, and it is good for us to remember that 
some keen foreign critics prefer the art of Moliere 
to that of Shakespeare. 

" Every Man in His Humour," " Every Man out Dramas, 
of His Humour," "Volpone or the Fox," "The 
Silent Woman," " The Alchemist," " Bartholomew 
Fair," are the names of some of Jonson's best come- 
dies. Of these, " Volpone " and " The Alchemist " 
are the finest, and there is a kind of splendor and 
an amazing vigor to them. " Bartholomew Fair," 
though not so well constructed, is nearer to life, 
and affords a rich and entertaining study of man- 
ners. Jonson's two Roman tragedies, " Sejanus " 
and " Catiline," are nobly hewn by sheer force out 
of the bed-rock of his learned mind ; but they are 
difficult to read from their lack of human warmth. 
Jonson posed as a moralist in the drama, which 
Shakespeare never did ; but his labored works re- 
veal hate and scorn of vice rather than love of 
virtue, and hence are not a moral force in the same 



260 



THE RENAISSANCE 



full sense as the loving, unconscious work of Shake- 
speare. 

Masques By one of the most curious paradoxes in literature 
and lyrics. mags ^ ve g en i us was a i so ^h e au thor of some of 

the daintiest, most charming trifles that the welter 
of time has borne down to us. In connection with 
Inigo Jones, the architect and decorator, he invented 
masques to amuse the court of King James. Simply 
to read the splendid stage directions for these 
masques stimulates the imagination. Jonson wrote 
other little lyrics too, and we have also a collection 
of his vigorous table-talk. His genius may have 
mellowed as he grew older ; at least, he left unfin- 
ished at his death a pastoral drama, " The Sad Shep- 
herd," which has a delicate aerial tenderness hard 
to reconcile with his other dramatic work. 

In his later years Jonson became a literary oracle. 
Younger poets and wits all gathered about his 
burly figure as he sat in state at the Mermaid 
Tavern, and listened delightedly to the jokes he 
cracked and the wisdom he dispensed. We hear of 
" the tribe of Ben " as we never heard of the tribe 
of Will. And yet, admired autocrat as he was, the 
drama would not follow him. The great romantic 
impulse was too strong. He tried to stem it in mid- 
current and failed. Had he lived half a century 
later, when the stream flowed more weakly, it might 
have been different. For the time came — we are 
to reach it soon — when the principles Jonson 
defended prevailed for a season, and people were 
filled with enthusiasm for law and set rules in writ- 
ing. But while he lived, the day was still to free- 
dom and romance. 



THE DECLINE OF THE DRAMA 261 



III. The Romantic Dramatists 

We return then from Jonson to the romantic 
drama ; and we shall have to look at it in its mass 
and movement rather than in detail, only touching 
on some authors who illustrate most forcibly its vari- 
ous phases. At the outset of the seventeenth cen- 
tury we find that this drama still expresses the 
delight in life, unsubdued and compelling, of the 
early Renaissance. The charming, careless, sponta- 
neous plays of Dekker, especially his " Old Fortuna- Thomas 
tus" and "Shoemaker's Holiday," are bubbling over ^boiS^' 
with fun and alit with pure poetry ; the work of 1570 - 163 ?- 
Heywood, even when tragic, has the simplicity and Thomas 
natural sweetness that bespeak rather closeness to S8i(?)- d ' 
life than intimacy with stagecraft ; and these drama- 1640 ( ? ) 
tists are, like all the best Elizabethans, thoroughly 
wholesome even when too outspoken for our modern 
tastes. 

But before long, a taint seems to creep over the Francis 
drama even while its beauty deepens. This is most f586 l ( 1 ?) - nt ' 
evident in Beaumont and Fletcher, the twin drama- }ohn and 
tists whose fame in their own day almost eclipsed that ^£^25 
of Shakespeare. Their work has many delightful 
qualities. They have interesting plots, and under- 
stand the secret of effective dramatic construction; 
they control real passion and pathos, and can impart 
with careless ease that thrill of emotion which Jon- 
son's brilliant labored art can never arouse. Above 
all, they write poetry of an enchanting sweetness. 
Yet with all this, theirs is the drama of decadence. Its 
defects are not those of the undeveloped drama of 
Marlowe, but those of an art in decay. They lack 



262 



THE RENAISSANCE 



large sanity and healthfulness ; their work is subtly 
overwrought. They sentimentalize, and on their 
fairest creations rests too often the stigma from 
which the work of Shakespeare is so nobly free, 
the grave stigma of impurity. 

The Jacobean drama shows decline in another way 
yet more clearly ; that is, in the terrible gloom that 
invades it, in its fascinated dwelling on crime and 
horror, in the tone which it often reflects of fatalism 
and despair. Shakespeare's most sorrowful tragedies 
never leave humanity, as do these later plays, helpless 
and hopeless in the presence of an overmastering fate, 
the passive prey to its own passions. Outraged old 
Gloster in " King Lear " may cry aloud, " As flies to 
wanton boys are we to the gods ; they kill us for 
their sport " : but we all know that his sorrows are 
self-inflicted, that " man is man and master of his 
fate." But when a character in Webster's " Duchess 
of Malfi" exclaims bitterly, "We are merely the 
stars' tennis balls, struck and bandied which way 
please them," we feel that he expresses the soul of 
the dramatist himself. 

John Webster and Cyril Tourneur were past 
masters in this drama of horror, and the chief ex- 
amples of the type are Webster's "Duchess of 
Malfi," and his powerful play, " The White Devil," 
i7th rneur ' an d- the inferior and almost appalling dramas of 
Tourneur, " The Atheist's Tragedy " and " The Re- 
venger's Tragedy." These plays are lineal descend- 
ants of the old " Tragedy of Blood " ; but that 
archaic drama presented its terrors with a sort of 
lusty zest, while the work of Webster and Tourneur 
springs from a mind diseased and burdened with 



John 
Webster, 
16th and 
17th 

centuries. 
Cyril 



17th 
century 



THE DECLINE OF THE DRAMA 263 



anguish. " The Duchess of Malfi " is the most 
attractive and human drama of this group, and it is 
a heart-breaking story of torments heaped on the 
head of a sweet and unoffending woman, and of the 
remorse, even to death and madness, visited on her 
tormentors. Intolerable pathos is almost the only 
thing that relieves the riotous pageant of evil in 
these dark plays. 

The last of the significant and powerful dramatists Philip 
of the Renaissance were Massinger and Ford ; and ^lEim' 
in reading them we feel that the stream of inspira- 
tion is running dry. Ford is a great poet, however. John Ford, 
He has sincerity of feeling, though not always of orTater* 
perception, and an impassioned sensitiveness that 
reminds one of Shelley. In his best drama, " The 
Broken Heart," he renders, in a manner worthy of 
the Sparta where the scene is laid, a high and intense 
endurance which retains its noble calm in the very 
presence of despair. But Ford's work is all over- 
strained, and spoiled by an insufferable morbidness 
of theme. Massinger, on the other hand, is no dis- 
eased victim of his own feelings ; he is manly, digni- 
fied, and moral ; but his copious work shows another 
evil quality of a dying art, for, though excellent in 
mechanical construction, it is, even when comic, dry 
and hard. 

So the drama of the Renaissance slowly died ; and The fate 
its doom was just. It had burnt itself out. It had drama, 
turned away from the heavens, and sought for the 
full gratification of life in experience of all the joys 
which this world offers ; it found itself confronting 
death, in a world which mocked desire with satiety 
or despair. Its gifts of imagination and passion, its 



264 



THE RENAISSANCE 



power of poetry, availed nothing ; and the closing 
of the theatres by an outraged Puritan England was 
only a righteous check from without upon an art 
which was already languishing from mortal disease 
within, and dying, like Webster's heroes, " in a 
mist " of doubt, decay, and pain. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

See Ch. VTI. The Mermaid Series, with excellent Introduc- 
tions, gives good text of selected plays. Gosse, The Jacobean 
Poets. Ward, Vols. II, III. Hazlitt, Dramatic Literature of 
the Age of Elizabeth. Charles Lamb, Selections from the 
Old Dramatists. Fleay, Biographical Chronicle. Dictionary 
of National Biography. Swinburne has critical studies on 
many of these men, especially an elaborate monograph on Ben 
Jonson. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

This chapter in our literary history would better be passed 
over by young students lightly. Readings may be assigned, or 
given in class by the teacher, from Ben Jonson's "Masques," 
or selected scenes from the dramas, as, for instance, the scenes 
between the child and his uncle in " Bonduca," the 'prentice 
scenes in " The Shoemaker's Holiday," or the burlesque scenes 
from " The Knight of the Burning Pestle." Lyrics of Fletch- 
er's and Webster's may be taught. 



CHAPTER X 



VERSE AND PROSE OF THE LATER RENAISSANCE 

WE dropped the study of non-dramatic literature 
with the death of the queen in 1603 ; we re- 
turn now to take a brief survey of that literature 
from the accession of James I in 1603 to the Restora- 
tion in 1660. 

I. Historical and Literary Conditions 

Those were stirring times in English history. The The 
drama of national life was more mighty by far than struggle, 
that presented on the stage, for it determined the 
civil and religious destiny of the nation. In the 
sixteenth century, the Anglican Church had faced 
the Roman Catholic, and had prevailed ; in the 
seventeenth, it faced the Puritans, and was tempo- 
rarily worsted. At the same time, the great strug- 
gle was going on between the feudal idea of an abso- 
lute monarchy, valorously maintained by the unhappy 
race of the Stuart kings and their devoted followers, 
and the larger idea of political freedom toward which 
the whole nation had for centuries been moving. 
During the reign of James, this double struggle, 
though threatening, was quiescent. It rose to a head 
in the times of Charles I, and the Civil War led to a 
king's death on the scaffold, and to a Puritan Com- 
monwealth. The Commonwealth endured until the 

265 



266 



THE RENAISSANCE 



Phases of 
seven- 
teenth- 
century 
literature. 

The spirit 
of the 
Renais- 
sance. 



The 

Puritan 
spirit. 



The 

classical 
spirit. 



temporary reaction in the latter part of the century 
restored to the throne a degenerate Stuart and to the 
nation a set of political ideas from which the real life 
had fled. 

These heart-searching agitations affected litera- 
ture, but did not subdue it. During the last period 
of civil strife, the Wars of the Roses, the Muses had 
fled from England ; during this period, their singing, 
though faint at times, was constantly heard over the 
cries of battle. They had gained in confidence. 
The expression of personal life through art had 
become a necessary and permanent factor in national 
experience ; and the seventeenth century produced 
a copious literature both in prose and poetry. 

We may distinguish three phases in this literature 
of the seventeenth century : — 

First, it is a wonderful witness to the vitality of 
the spirit of the Renaissance that this spirit continues 
potent till near the end of the century, producing 
both poetry and prose in the hostile and heated 
atmosphere of the civil war and of the Common- 
wealth. 

Second, we find a scanty but extremely significant 
literature which expresses that phase of national 
life which was for the time victorious and compel- 
ling : the literature of Puritanism. 

Third, toward the end of the century, after the 
Restoration, literature entered into a new allegiance, 
and an entirely new literary period began. This 
period, of so-called classical literature, will occupy 
the next book. In this book we have still to trace 
the last literature of the Renaissance, to study the 
literature of Puritanism, and to discuss the work of 



VERSE AND PROSE 



267 



one of our greatest poets, John Milton, in whom 
these two currents, strangely united, meet the new 
current making for classicism in art. 



II. Seventeenth-century Poetry 

The literature of the later Renaissance is quite 
different in tone from that of the early. It has the 
same imaginative fervor and feeling, but it is much 
graver and more conscious. Its passion often 
" leaves the earth, to lose itself in the sky," revert- 
ing to the religious preoccupation so natural to the 
Anglo-Saxon race, but so markedly absent during 
certain phases of the earlier Renaissance. 

In Jacobean times, we meet several pleasant Minor 
minor poets, whose work entitles them to a place in poets! ean 
the history of letters. Thomas Campion, a belated Thomas 
Elizabethan in spirit, with a more sustained art, ^j^^' 
scattered through various " books of airs " little 
lyrics of ravishing melody which sing themselves 
in a magical way even when divorced from their 
music. William Drummond of Hawthornden is a William 
gentle scholar in verse, with a sense for beauty. Son?" 
Michael Drayton's powerful but unillumined mind 1585 ~ 1649 - 
produced, in 1613, a massive English geography Drayton 
inverse, called the " Polyolbion." Much of Dray- 1563-1631. 
ton's work belonged to the Elizabethan age, but his olSonj" 
best sonnet is Jacobean, and so is the noble ode, 1613 ' 1622 * 
"The Battle of Agincourt." For the sake of these 
and a few other short poems we forgive him the 
" Polyolbion." William Browne, a writer of pastoral William 
poems, of which the most important is called " Bri- 1590-1645. 
tannia's Pastorals," has by some critics been compared 



268 



THE RENAISSANCE 



Phineas 

Fletcher, 

1582-1650. 



Giles 

Fletcher, 

1588-1623. 



John 

Donne, 

1573-1631. 



Caroline 
poets. 



to Keats, but he is a Keats turned very languid. 
Two brother imitators of Spenser, Phineas and Giles 
Fletcher, cousins of the dramatist, had more original 
power. Phineas Fletcher's poem in Spenserian 
stanzas, " The Purple Island," is a long allegory of 
the human body, and despite its unpromising physi- 
ological subject shows real sense for beauty in de- 
scription. This poem suggests the new interest in 
science and in semi-philosophical thought which 
was invading poetry ; the poem of Giles Fletcher, 
" Christ's Victory and Triumph," opens with dignity 
and imagination the religious poetry of the seven- 
teenth century. 

More important than any of these men, however, 
was the paradoxical figure of John Donne, Dean of 
St. Paul's. He began to write long before the death 
of the queen ; he was Dean of St. Paul's under 
James I, and esteemed the most powerful preacher 
in England. His poems were apparently not pub- 
lished till 1631, after his death, but they exercised 
long before this time a profound, obscure influence 
over younger men, something like that of Browning 
and Rossetti in our own age. He lounded the 
last school of poetry in the Renaissance, for he in- 
augurated the style which marks the decadence of 
romantic art ; a style of obscure allusion and fan- 
tastic metaphor, showing almost in a diseased way 
the quest for strangeness so characteristic of the 
romantic temper. 

An interesting group of poets belongs to the time 
of Charles, or to the Commonwealth. Let us enu- 
merate them : George Wither, Francis Quarles, 
George Herbert, Thomas Carew, Richard Crashaw, 



VERSE AND PROSE 



269 



William Habington, Sir John Suckling, Henry 
Vaughan, Sir Richard Lovelace, Robert Herrick. 

Donne had sung his experience as sinner and as The reii- 
saint with equal energy. In this group of men, two poets, 
tendencies appear, the secular, and the religious. 
The work of the stronger of them, of Herbert, Cra- 
shaw, Yaughan, and at times of several others, is 
suffused with a glow of spiritual feeling. They 
were deeply religious, but not in the austere and 
argumentative fashion of the Puritanism current 
in their day. They belonged to the Anglican tra- 
dition ; some of them were, some of them became, 
Roman Catholics. They brought grace, imaginative 
passion, and instinctive love of symbolism, even a 
sort of chivalrous loyalty, into their life of faith. 
They were of the monarchical party, and their gaze, 
when not turned upward and inward, often seems 
to us to be directed backward ; but they had rich 
natures, and their poetry pulsates and shines. Theirs 
is the red afterglow of the great Renaissance day. 
Mr. Shorthouse's beautiful novel, " John Inglesant," 
gives the best idea of the spirit and character of 
these seventeenth-century men. 

Saintly George Herbert, with his collection of George 
poems called " The Temple," is the most famous of 1593^1633. 
these poets, and his work has a quaint, sincere, un- 
dying charm. But another of the group, Henry Henry 
Vaughan, equally saintly, was the more original S22-I695. 
spirit. Vaughan's poems, of which the best are in 
the collection he named, in the fantastic fashion of 
the day, " Silex Scintillans," strike distinctly a new 
note. He had a far-darting imagination, and he 
knew the soul of man. He lived among the Welsh 



270 



THE RENAISSANCE 



The secu- 
lar poets. 



Richard 

Lovelace, 

1618-1658. 

Sir John 

Suckling, 

1609-1641. 



Rohert 

Herrick, 

1591-1674. 



hills, and to find any parallel for his feeling toward 
nature, we must travel back to Cynewulf and the 
Welsh bards, or forward to Wordsworth, who in his 
" Ode on the Intimations of Immortality " distinctly 
caught his inspiration from Vaughan. The life of 
the Church and the life of nature are fused in his 
work with daring sacramental passion. 

The other men of this group, among whom 
Vaughan was perhaps the most surprising genius, 
had each a temperament and a word all his own ; no 
set of minor authors better deserves study. One likes 
to feel that the music of the Renaissance died away 
in their work rather than in the loose, though gay 
and sweet melodies of the reckless so-called Cava- 
lier poets. Yet we could ill afford to miss the spir- 
ited little songs of those gallant, ill-starred gentlemen, 
Lovelace and Suckling, in whom the mood of adven- 
ture leaped into a last bright flame. They have left 
us but a handful of lyrics, — the swan song of chiv- 
alry and loyalty in the Renaissance. 

One of these poets, however, is of higher rank ; 
Herrick, the festive, pagan-souled clergyman, who 
through times of stormy national disaster lived in 
his country parsonage, and sang with a gayety 
worthy of an earlier day of Julia's silk attire, of 
harvest homes and Mayings, of daffodils and gilly- 
flowers, and all the bright detail of the country. 
But let him give us his own programme : — 

" I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, 
Of April, May, of June and July flowers, 
I sing of Maypoles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, 
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes. 



VERSE AND PROSE 



271 



I sing of Hell ; I sing, and ever shall, 

Of Heaven, — and hope to have it after all.' 7 1 

It is a hope that his every reader echoes ; for Her- " Hes- 
rick endears himself to them all. But the "Noble ie&8 des ' 
Numbers," in which he sings of divine and lofty "Noble 
themes, are less delightful to us than the little lyrics j^g 11 " 
of the " Hesperides," wherein the first part of his 1648 « 
promise is so well fulfilled. These dainty, often 
minute poems, seem to catch the last fine echo of the 
sweet laughter of the Elizabethan dawn. With Her- 
rick it may almost be said that we bid farewell to 
spontaneity, to pure joyousness, to lyrical ease, till 
we are greeted by them again, a century and a half 
later, in the poems of Robert Burns. 



III. Seventeenth-century Prose 

Prose, in the seventeenth century, had become at 
last a well-accredited and dignified instrument, with 
an assured literary tradition. In style, as in substance, 
it continued on the lines established by Bacon and 
Hooker. The chief work of Bacon, indeed, belongs Francis 
to the seventeenth century. The first ten Essays Lorofst. 
were printed in 1597, but the last complete author's ^^i^ 
edition, in which the number was enlarged to fifty- 
eight, did not appear till 1625, the year before Bacon's 
death. The majestic " Advancement of Learning " 
appeared in 1605 ; in 1620 came the Latin " Novum 
Organum." Bacon first taught people to try to dis- 
cover the truths of nature and natural law instead of 
inventing them ; he started in England that induc- 



1 Herrick, first poem in the " Hesperides." 



272 



THE RENAISSANCE 



Edward 
Hyde, 
Earl of 
Clarendon, 
1608-1674. 



Religious 
prose. 



tive method which has revolutionized thought and 
given us modern science. It is indeed a worthy 
part of the achievement of the Renaissance to have 
started men on the quest for the realities of nature 
as well as the realities of character. The unfinished 
"New Atlantis," published in 1627, completed Bacon's 
work with a dream of a new world inhabited by men 
who, having mastered the forces of nature, shaped 
life almost as they would. 

History reached a dignified success in Lord Claren- 
don's " History of the Great Rebellion," which was 
actually begun while the Civil War was in progress, 
and also in his autobiography. But most of the prose 
produced during the reigns of James and Charles 
and during the Commonwealth, was of a religious 
character. Much of it, naturally enough, consider- 
ing what was happening at the time, was controver- 
sial ; but the breath of controversy withers art, and 
this extensive pamphlet literature, except when writ- 
ten by a man like Milton, so great that even contro- 
versy can scorch his work only in spots, does not 
interest the pilgrim of beauty. It is otherwise, how- 
ever, with some great and living books of the seven- 
teenth century : with Bishop Andrewes's sermons 
and devotions, Richard Burton's " Anatomy of Mel- 
ancholy," the very name of which suggests the 
temper of the times ; Fuller's " Holy and Profane 
State" and his "Worthies of England"; and the 
works of Jeremy Taylor, of Izaak Walton, of Sir 
Thomas Browne. These books breathe an ampler 
air than that of theological discussion. They com- 
mand rich harmonies of style; they have a quaint 
stateliness, a fervor, an eloquence, that is all their 



VERSE AND PROSE 



273 



own. The thought and style of Jeremy Taylor are Jeremy 
borne upward by the " wingy mysteries of divinity," i6^°i667. 
and his 44 Holy Living " and " Holy Dying " still 
hold their own on many tables beside the " Imita- 
tion of Christ." Reading these books, or the devo- 
tions of Lancelot Andrewes, we realize the intense 
religious experience that in this strange century of 
contrasts coexisted with the mood which produced 
the dramas of Ford. 

There is a sweet meditative earnestness about the izaak 
"Lives" of Izaak Walton; his " Compleat Angler " 1593^1683. 
takes us, in delightful company, into cool nooks 
beside the running streams of rural England. Like 
many seventeenth-century writers, Walton becomes 
to us a very vivid and distinct personality. But 
among all these delightful men, there is none whom 
one would more eagerly call friend than that most 
sympathetic of physicians, Sir Thomas Browne. It sir 
is in his " Vulgar Errors," his " Urn Burial," above Browne, 
all in his 44 Religio Medici," that he reveals to us his 1605 - 1682 - 
lovable personality ; a personality full of quaint and 
kindly humor, of large charity, of mingled intelli- 
gence and superstition. His English is the nobly 
modulated and glowing prose of which the secret, 
after the seventeenth century, was lost till Lamb 
discovered it once more. Far more than Bacon, Sir 
Thomas Browne deserves the title of our English 
Montaigne. 

We cannot talk of the prose literature of England The 
and omit the Book which is the greatest glory of i?bie Sh 
English prose in its first power and freshness ; which 
has entered more fully than any other book, more 
fully even than Shakespeare, into the blood and 



274 



THE RENAISSANCE 



sinew of the English race : the Authorized Version 
of the Bible, which was issued in 1611. 

Many versions had preceded it. After the trans- 
lation of Wyclif in the fourteenth century, made 
from the Latin Vulgate, came the long age of arrest, 
during which people were no more alive to the Scrip- 
tures than to other high matters. But with the 
New Learning the desire for a Bible that could be 
" understanded of the people " grew swiftly clamor- 
ous. Thrilling is the story of the disinterested 
labors given to this great cause. The famous New 
Testament of William Tyndale, printed in 1526, 
was only the first of numerous translations of either 
the whole or part of the Bible, published before 
1539. All this work was done by private men, but 
in 1539 appeared the noble Bishop's Bible, under the 
auspices of Cranmer and sanctioned for public use. 
The Prayer-book version of the Psalter, still in use, 
is from this Bible, which was the basis of all later 
translation. After this time Bibles multiplied ; but 
the language was in flux, and the times were perhaps 
hardly ripe for a permanent version until, in 1604, a 
year after the death of Queen Elizabeth, the most 
godly and learned men of the Renaissance at its 
prime gathered together at the summons of King 
James, to produce, working on the basis of their 
predecessors, the version which is in all our hands 
to-day. 

No moment could have been more fortunate from 
the point of view of letters. Only men of strong 
Christian faith could have produced the Book, only 
men of learning. The necessity of clinging to the 
original Hebrew and Greek rescued the style from 



VERSE AND PROSE 



275 



the extravagance and prolixity which were the dan- 
gers of the time, while the rich vocabulary, the color 
and movement, the uplifted harmonies and poignant 
cadences, that marked the best seventeenth-century 
prose find their culmination here. 

With marvellous swiftness the Book took posses- 
sion of England, and the style of our best authors 
ever since has been formed upon it. To instance 
only moderns, what would the prose of Carlyle, of 
Ruskin, of Newman, of Matthew Arnold, be without 
the influence of the Scriptures ? We may note at 
once, during the seventeenth century, two literary 
results from its appearance. It became the book of 
the common people ; it reached a public which no 
other English book had ever reached"; and it was 
thus a uniting force, making for intellectual and 
spiritual democracy. Then, it emphasized immensely, 
though of course it did not introduce, the influence 
of the Hebrew race over the English people. Greece 
and Rome, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, have 
all had their respective parts to play in shaping the 
English; but no national influence has struck so 
deep or has so penetrated the vital regions of Eng- 
lish personality as the influence of Palestine, felt 
through the Hebrew Scriptures. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

For the history of the times, S. R. Gardiner, The First 
Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution. Green's History, 
Ch. VIII. 

Gosse gives a good account of many of the poets treated in 
this chapter in his Jacobean Poets. Extracts from all are 
found in Ward's English Poets, II. Attractive editions of 
Herrick, Donne, Vaughan, are in the Muses Library (Charles 



276 



THE RENAISSANCE 



Scribners). Herbert's Temple has been reprinted in fac- 
simile, with a Preface by John Shorthouse. Bacon's New- 
Atlantis is found in Morley's Ideal Commonwealths. Clar- 
endon is accessible in Selections by the Very Rev. G. D. Boyle, 
Clarendon Press. Walton's Compleat Angler can be had in 
Cassell's Universal Library. Browne's Religio Medici is in the 
Camelot Series. Craik's English Prose Selections, II, gives 
extracts from the prose writers here treated. 

Masson's Life of Milton, I, Ch. VI, describes admirably the 
state of literature in 1630. Masterman's The Age of Milton 
covers the period. 

Traill, Social England, Vol. IV. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

The authors treated in this chapter are among the most 
interesting minor figures in English letters. But until the stu- 
dent knows something of the great men, Chaucer, Shakespeare, 
Spenser, Milton, he would better take these on trust. A few 
hours may, however, well be spent in pure, unanalyzed enjoy- 
ment of Herrick and Herbert, and little appreciations of these 
poets may be prepared as compositions. Walton and Browne 
should be introduced, so that the few who are born their 
friends may enter as soon as may be into the rich privilege 
of their friendship. The rhythm and fervor of the Authorized 
Version of the Scriptures should be studied in carefully chosen 
extracts. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

The Historical Background of the Times ; Bacon's " New 
Atlantis " compared with More's " Utopia " ; Literary Influence 
of the English Bible. 



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CHAPTER XI 



JOHN MILTON 

THE men of the seventeenth century are singu- 
larly interesting, but as a rule, every man stands 
for one of the forces of that complex age. Milton 
towers above them all. He is the greatest spirit of 
the age, for he is the most comprehensive. 

It is in times of spiritual transition that great 
imaginative leaders most often appear. They stand 
at a parting of the ways. If we gaze earnestly into 
their minds, we shall see there the past and the fu- 
ture meet. Such was the case with Dante, Chaucer, 
Spenser. But there is no English writer in whom 
more currents unite than in John Milton. In the 
quality of his imagination, and in his poetic art, 
especially through his early work, he is the last son 
of the Renaissance ; in the whole body of his intel- 
lectual and moral convictions he is Republican and 
Puritan ; in the character of his emotion, and in a 
certain sustained self-mastery and dignity of style, 
he foretells, especially through his later work, the 
coming revival of classical standards. 

Two words sum up the temper of Milton's life 
and of his work : lofty purity. His life is a high 
romance ; in reading of it, his own youthful words 
again and again recur to us : " My mind gave 
me," he wrote in 1642, "that every free and gentle 
spirit ought to be born a knight." " He who would 

286 



JOHN MILTON 



287 



not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in 
laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem." 



I. Milton's Life and Early Work 

Milton was born in London, eight years before Milton's 
the death of Shakespeare. Compared with Shake- i608 h ' 
speare, he was a child of privilege and convention. 
His father was a Puritan gentleman in whom re- 
ligious severity had not exiled the arts, in particu- 
lar the art of music. Milton went to Cambridge 
University, where he spent seven years, and received, a'nd y^nlth. 
as befitted a young English gentleman, a scholar's 
training. He was very beautiful in his youth, and 
was given the nickname of " the lady of Christ's," Ca . m - 
his college, because of his curling long auburn hair 1625-1632. 
and delicate face. Leaving the University a master 
of arts, he spent five years and nine months in retire- 
ment at his father's country home at Horton. Then 
he went to Italy, after the fashion of young men of Italian 
the Renaissance, made many friends, saw the blind 1638-1639. 
Galileo in his tower, and became at every point a 
courtly and accomplished gentleman. 

No fairer training can be imagined for a poet ; and a 
poet Milton had already shown himself to be. In these 
years, before he was thirty years old, he had written 
that group of minor poems which would in themselves 
have set him above all other poets of his age. The 
most beautiful of these poems are : the " Ode on the 
Morning of Christ's Nativity," written while he was 
still at college ; " L'Allegro " and " II Penseroso," 
companion pieces, breathing of his literary studies and 
rural wanderings at Horton ; the two poems in 



288 



THE RENAISSANCE 



which the literary masque of the Renaissance passed 
away, glorified in its death, " Arcades," and more 
important, "Comus"; and "Lycidas," a pastoral elegy 
on the death of his college friend or acquaintance, 
Edward King. 

The manner of the Renaissance reigns supreme in 
these poems ; inspires the delicate fashioning of the 
verse, the quest for felicity of phrase, the pervading 
sense of art and beauty. Yet a temper more austere 
gives their sweetness strength, — the temper of high 
moral idealism, compelling and complete. We feel 
the rich sensuous equipment of the poet, we respond 
to his appeal to the eye, to the ear, to the imagina- 
tion ; but thrilling through all these, the soul of 
them all, is the clear call of the appeal to con- 
science. " L' Allegro " and " II Penseroso " are, for 
instance, quite unethical in purport. They are poems 
of youth ; they express those fleeting moods of joy 
or pensiveness which seem to youth so fraught with 
significance. Yet even here it is a youth almost as- 
cetic in the inmost trend of its nature, however sen- 
sitive to beauty, that speaks to us ; we feel that 
Milton's feet are more at home pacing alone the 
dry smooth-shaven green, or the studious cloister's 
pale than in the haunts of innocent gayety. 

In " Lycidas," Milton's great elegy, the double 
forces that at this time controlled his nature show 
in a way almost startling. It is, like most of the 
elegiac work so popular in the Renaissance, a pol- 
ished piece of literary art, carefully based on classic 
models. But Edward King had been destined for 
the Church ; and this fact wakens Milton's soul. 
He pours out his fiery indignation against ecclesi- 



JOHN MILTON 



289 



astical corruption in a famous passage. The harsh 
Hebraic and Puritan passion breaks with strange 
effect against the mellifluous classicism of the con- 
ventional pastoral strain ; and only the serene and 
even dignity of Milton's marvellous style, — for 
already the gift is his to find the inevitable word, — 
reconciles us to the abrupt transition and carries us 
without shock from the one world into the other. 

In " Comus," the most important poem of this 
period, we feel with especial clearness that we have 
entered a new imaginative region. The masque, 
presented before the Earl of Bridgewater at Ludlow 
Castle by his own children, shows us a lady separated 
from her two brothers and wandering lost in a wood. 
Deceived by the arts of an evil magician, Comus, son 
of Circe, she yet resists his spells and is finally found 
and rescued by her brothers, aided by an attendant 
spirit in the guise of a shepherd, and the river 
nymph, Sabrina. In the poetic presentment of this 
theme, we have the changing charm of beautiful 
landscape, of fair human figures, of dance and feast, 
of grotesque revel and pastoral sweetness ; we have 
all this wedded to most melodious measures. But 
if we put " Comus " beside the masques of Jonson 
or Campion or the " Faithful Shepherdess " of 
Fletcher, we are amazed at the contrast ; for here all 
arts of pleasing, present in perfection, are subordi- 
nate to another aim. 

" Mortals that would follow me, 
Love Virtue : she alone is free." 

In these early poems, the style of Milton already 
shows its individual and choice distinction ; a surety 



290 



THE RENAISSANCE 



Political 
activities. 



Latin 

Secretary, 

1649-1660. 



Prose 
work. 



of selective principle, a cool firmness of workman- 
ship which the Renaissance rarely reached. Milton's 
youthful feet, like those of his compeers, strayed in 
fields full of blossoms ; but theirs were the lush 
meadows of the lowlands, his the high pastures close 
beneath the everlasting snows. The light of the 
upper air is in the cool brilliance of the flowers he 
tenders us. 

No man ever took his poetic vocation with more 
seriousness than Milton. He had consecrated him- 
self to it in the spirit of a knight. Then came the 
call of an alien duty ; and without hesitation his 
young manhood turned away from his chosen task, 
and leaped to this new labor. 

He was still in Italy when the news of the break- 
ing out of the Civil War reached him. Instantly 
he changed his plans, dropped his ties, and made his 
way homeward, to put himself at the service of his 
country. Through twenty years poetry was not 
for him. He was not needed on the battlefield ; 
but he devoted his powers to the war of ideas by 
which, quite as much as by the fortunes of battle, 
the destinies of the time were decided. From 1649 
to 1658 he was Latin Secretary to " Cromwell, our 
chief of men," as he addressed him in a noble sonnet. 
He held the office nominally till the Restoration. 

We sigh when we think that we have from Milton 
only the poems of youth and of old age, not of his 
manly prime. The prose on which he lavished his 
efforts was, like most of the controversial prose of the 
day, acrid and harsh. He fought the foes of the Lord 
with any weapons that came to hand, whether abstract 
argument or personal abuse. The result is not pleas- 



JOHN MILTON 



291 



ant reading. Still, one looks at this prose with rev- 
erence ; for it was all written in the cause of liberty, 
liberty political, civil, social. At times, Milton's true 
self and his great imagination broke forth, as in the 
"Areopagitica," his finest pamphlet, which was written 
in defence of intellectual liberty, the freedom of the 
press. 

Milton had married during these years, unhappily 
and hastily it seems, a young girl of a Royalist 
family. After a separation and reunion, she died, 
leaving him three daughters, and some time later he 
married again a woman whom he tenderly loved. 
She was shortly taken from him, and he mourned 
her loss in a sonnet of exceeding beauty. The one 
poetic legacy of these years, indeed, is a series of 
sonnets. They are personal outbursts inspired by 
passing events, usually political. Milton uplifted 
the sonnet to the uses of patriotism : — 

" In his hand 

The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew 
Soul-animating strains, alas ! too few." 1 

His sonnets were written in a manner of his own ; 
with the Italian rhyme-scheme, but frequently with 
no break between the octave and the sestet. 

One of these sonnets tells us with high and beauti- 
ful pathos of the final sacrifice that Milton laid upon 
the altar of his country's freedom. It was the sacri- 
fice of his sight. For in 1652 Milton became blind. 
He had overstrained his delicate eyesight in the hasty 
composition of a pamphlet which he thought it his 
immediate duty to write. At times he was con- 

1 Wordsworth : " Scorn not the sonnet." 



292 



THE KENAISSANCE 



sumed under his affliction with restless pain, even 
with self-reproach, at the thought of " that one talent 
which is death to hide lodged with me useless ; " 
but he was comforted by the thought : " God doth 
not need either man's work or his own gifts ; — they 
also serve who only stand and wait," and also by the 
consciousness that his eyes had been lost "in Lib- 
erty's defence, my noble task." We can see that he 
bore his deprivation with magnanimity and faith. 
Later But a worse evil than loss of sight was to befall 

his spirit. After the death of Cromwell, that reli- 
gious republic for which Milton had given eyesight 
and the best years of his life crumbled and fell. 
The nation abjured Puritanism ; a corrupt Stuart 
returned to power. Blind, lonely, sad, Milton lived 
on into the days of the Restoration ; and then it was, 
while Charles and his courtiers revelled in coarse 
gayety, like Comus and his crew, that Milton lifted 
up his soul into a lofty calm, and unsealed the eyes 
of his spirit to behold the counsels of the Most High, 
the vast shades of Pandemonium, and the vision of an 
unfallen humanity dwelling on an earth unblighted. 



II. "Paradise Lost" 

The " Paradise Lost " was the work of Milton's 
later years. He wrote it between 1658 and 1665. 
We like to think of the solitary man, sitting in his 
eternal darkness, listening to the harmonies which 
the Muse, he tells us, nightly whispered in his ear. 
Milton had always meant to write a great poem. In 
his youth he had dallied with the subject of the 
national hero, King Arthur ; we do not wonder that 



JOHN MILTON 



293 



he changed his plan, and we see how only the theme 
of " Paradise Lost " could satisfy the sorrowful Puri- 
tan, fallen on evil days and evil tongues. 

Perhaps no one reading the great poem is likely 
to regret the choice ; yet the defects of the subject 
for epic treatment are obvious. It is doubtful at the 
outset whether a great heroic epic can ever be written 
save in the childhood of the race, though the way is 
always open to a romantic narrative like Spenser's. 
M Paradise Lost," moreover, has a technical defect ; 
there is no hero. Is Adam the hero ? He is quite 
too passive, acting in one point alone, where he yields 
to the temptation offered by the serpent through the 
woman. Messiah has been called the protagonist ; 
but not all Milton's glorious verse can reconcile us 
to this Personality who discusses theology with the 
Eternal Father, and in harsh warfare drives the rebel 
angels over the battlements of Heaven. Remains the 
Devil ; and, despite all arguments to the contrary, he 
is surely the figure on whom our interest centres, and 
who gathers to himself the sympathy of our impulse, 
though not of our conviction. Milton the repub- 
lican let his imagination play fascinated on this 
mightiest of rebels from an autocratic Power, though 
Milton the theologian doomed him to an eternity of 
crime and withering woe. 

But there is a deeper criticism to be passed on 
" Paradise Lost " ; it is impossible to handle the 
Scriptures imaginatively in such a way as to satisfy 
many generations. The mysterious Story of the 
Fall in Genesis comes to us out of the solemn twi- 
light of the first morning of the race ; to take that 
great Story into the hard light of a weary noon, to 



294 



THE RENAISSANCE 



translate it into the theological terms of one's own 
time, is audacious and unwise. There is little re- 
semblance between the version in Genesis and the 
elaborated epic of Milton. To apprehend the poem 
aright, we must disregard its relation to the Scrip- 
tures, and regard it simply as what it is, a stu- 
pendous imaginative invention. 

Even from this point of view it has its disappoint- 
ments. Milton's Heaven is a dull country, too 
definitely laid out. He imparts to us no sense of 
the mystery of spiritual things as Dante does ; nor 
does he give us the sense which Dante so solemnly 
imparts of the holiness of the Most High. His 
treatment of Heaven is anthropomorphic, not sym- 
bolic; hence it is open to the charge of irreverence. 

But detraction is poor business in the presence of 
one of the great poems of the English tongue. 
Remembering the work of Csedmon, so strangely 
prophetic, we can believe that the impulse to create 
an epic on this theme was due to no temporary 
causes, but was deep-rooted in the race. What other 
theme could be so mighty ? All epic lives by the 
consciousness of battle ; where else is a battle like 
this, — the contest of the forces of eternal good and 
undying evil for victory over the human race ? If 
Milton's treatment of the Divine seems to dwarf 
infinitude, no conception was ever grander than that 
presented by his poem of the rebel hosts, and of 
Lucifer, who leads them with " faded splendor 
wan." Dante's devil sticks in the centre of the 
world, grotesque, earth-bound, the very concrete 
incarnation of impotent Death. Milton's, less logical 
it may be as an impersonation of evil, is far more 



JOHN MILTON 



295 



magnificent. With dignity unimpaired he convenes 
his vast demon hosts, — finely conceived as the 
false gods of the nations to be, — or wings his way 
through the profound gulfs of Chaos, or pours forth 
his agony in the marvellous soliloquy on Mount 
Niphates. Powerful is the study of his faint com- 
punctions, — for in him at the outset much of the 
archangel lingers yet, — and of the final Doom, when, . 
the deed accomplished and the ruin of man achieved, 
he returns to his gloomy shades. 

Nor would one ignore the lovely descriptions of 
the " bowery loneliness " of Eden, nor the splen- 
did picturing of the angels. Not mystically fair 
like the significant spiritual presences in Dante, these 
angels are yet glorious creatures ; one feels in them 
the dying effort of the opulent imagination of the 
Renaissance to conceive supreme beauty. And it 
were hard to dwell too much on the grand sweep 
and scope of the intellectual conception of the poem, 
moving logically as it does from creation to redemp- 
tion. 

All this great action is presented in uplifted 
verse which it would be an impertinence to praise. 
No one has ever drawn from blank verse the deep 
inward music of Milton. Tennyson's words are best 
about it : — 

" mighty -mouthed inventor of harmonies, 
skilled to sing of time or eternity, 
God-gifted organ-voice of England, 
Milton, a name to resound for ages ! " 



296 



THE RENAISSANCE 



III. Last Work and Death 

" Para- Milton did not stop writing with " Paradise 
gained," Lost ": and we are glad that his spirit did not pause 

1671 . 

with considering temptation victorious over Eve, 

but went on to consider temptation conquered by 

Christ. But the poetry of the " Paradise Regained " 

has never held men, like the " Paradise Lost." One 

more great and worthy poem the old man was to 

"Sam- write, however — "Samson Agonistes." We feel 

Sstesf"" that no subject could have expressed with a nobler 

1671, pathos the mood of his latter days. Righteousness 

is worsted, humbled, in the toils ; yet dying it 

conquers, and the victory of faith is assured. In 

art, the poem like " Lycidas," is the offspring of the 

mingled Hebraic and Hellenic elements in Milton's 

nature ; for the Old Testament story is treated like 

a Greek tragedy. But the two elements are fused 

at last, and are no longer, as in " Lycidas," in sharp 

and questionable juxtaposition. The drama has been 

called the last expression of the noble dramatic 

impulse in the England of the Renaissance ; it has been 

compared to a fortress rock, the last outpost of a 

chain of Alpine heights, standing alone in its plain. 

Milton's " Samson Agonistes " was probably written after 

death, ■ 1667 ; Milton lived till 1674. Then his great and 
1674. 5 . . _ . , _ _ _ . . 

pure spirit passed into that unseen world where his 

imagination had loved to dwell. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

David Masson, The Life of John Milton ; also standard 
edition, in three volumes, of Milton's works. J. H. B. Mas- 
terman, The Age of Milton. Stopford Brooke, Milton. 
Life, by Richard Garnett, Great Writers Series. Life, 



JOHN MILTON 



297 



by Mark Pattison, English Men of Letters. Life, by Dr. 
Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets. Masson's Three Devils; 
Luther's, Milton's, and Goethe's. Essays on Milton, by Macau- 
lay ; Edmond Scherer, in Essays on English Literature ; 
Matthew Arnold, in Essays in Criticism, Series II ; and 
Edward Dowden, Transcripts and Studies. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

Close, line by line, analysis of the minor poems of Milton 
is one of the best means English literature affords for train- 
ing the ear to appreciation of lyrical beauty, and the mind 
to the understanding of poetic expression. Study of metrical 
structure, of choice of epithet, of metaphor, of pause melody, 
etc., should be as full as time allows. Kecitations in class 
should be encouraged, and "Lycidas," "L' Allegro," and "II 
Penseroso," made permanent possessions. 

"Paradise Lost" may be read more rapidly, though the 
power of the blank verse should be brought home to the stu- 
dent in every possible way. But substance should here engage 
as much attention as style. The portions of the poem referring 
to Satan always prove most stirring to a class, and the great 
character should be studied stage by stage, in its majesty, in 
its pathos, in its terrible moral decline. 

Special topics may, of course, be given to great advantage 
by advanced students on such topics as The Greek Elegies on 
which "Lycidas " is founded, Milton's Possible Debt to Caedmon, 
Milton's Sonnet Structure, Milton's Treatment of the Gods of 
the Ancient World compared with Spenser's, etc. 

But the student must clearly feel that the work on Milton 
in any general course is only an introduction to what deserves 
lifelong study. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

The comparisons with Dante suggested in the text may well 
be carried further. Since few classes can read the "Paradise 
Lost " through, lectures on the poem as a whole, with read- 
ings, and presentation of the intellectual scheme and structure, 
are very desirable. Lectures on the political history of the 
times, with special references to the Puritan type of character, 
are also helpful. 



298 



THE RENAISSANCE 



MILTON'S LIFE AND WORKS 



Tear 



Life and Works 



General English 
History- 



Literary History 



1608 



1611 

1612 
1613 
1615 

1616 

1618 

1619 

1620 

1622 
1623 

1625 
1626 

1628 

1629 

1630 



1631 



1632 



Milton born. 

Lived in his father's 
house in London 
for sixteen years. 



St. Paul's School. 



Cambridge. 

" On a Fair Infant.' 



Exer- 



" Vacation 

cise." 
B. A. " Nativity 

Ode." 



"The Circumci- 
sion." "On 
Time." "At a 
Solemn Music." 
"Epitaph on 
Shakespeare." 

"Epitaph on the 
Marchioness of 
Winchester." 
"Song on May 
Morning." 

M. A., Cambridge; 
Sonnet I. 



Fifth year of James 
I's reign. 

First permanent 
English settle- 
ment in America. 



First Puritan emi- 
gration to Amer- 
ica. 



Charles I, king. 



Laud, bishop of 
London. 

Charlesdissolveshis 
third Parliament. 
No new Parlia- 
ment until 1640. 



" King Lear " pub- 
lished. 
Thomas Fuller born. 



Authorized Version 

of Bible. 
Samuel Butler born. 
JeremyTaylorborn. 
Richard Baxter 

born. 
Shakespeare and 

Beaumont died. 
Abraham Cowley 

born. 
Ben Jonson poet 

laureate. 



Henry Vaughan 
born. 

The First Folio of 
Shakespeare pub- 
lished. Fletcher 
died. 

Bacon and 

Andre wes died. 
John Bunyan born. 



Drayton and Donne 

died. 
Dryden born. 

John Locke born. 



JOHN MILTON 



299 



Life and "Works 



Beginning of six 
years at Horton. 
Sonnet II. 

"Arcades" (per- 
haps 1631). 
" L' Allegro " and 
" n Penseroso " 
(at about this 
time) . 

" Comus" acted. 

M. A., Oxford. 

"Lycidas." "Co- 
mus" published. 

Continental jour- 
ney. 

" Italian Sonnets." 

To London. "Epi- 
taphium D a- 
monis." 

First notes for 
" Paradise Lost." 

Controversial pam- 
phlets on episco- 
pacy and Church 
reform. 

Beginning of prose 
period of about 20 
years. Sonnets 
and poetic trans- 
lations through- 
out this period. 

First marriage. 



Tracts on "Di- 
vorce," "Edu- 
cation," and 
notably, the 
" Areopagitica " 
on the liberty of 
the press. 

Collected edition of 
poems, English, 
Italian, and Latin. 

Latin Secretary. 

Politicalpamphlets, 
written at inter- 
vals. 



General English 
History 



Laud, archbishop of 
Canterbury. 



Discontent in Eng- 
land. 
War with Scotland. 



Long Parliament 
(1640) . 

Execution of Straf- 
ford. 

Civil War. Battle 
of Edgehill. 



BattlesofChalgrove 
and Newbury. 
Hampden and 
Pym died. 

Battle of Marston 
Moor. Use of 
Prayer Book pro- 
hibited by Par- 
liament. Laud 
executed. Battle 
of Naseby. 

Charles I surren- 
ders to the Scots. 

Second Civil War. 

Execution of 
Charles and of 
many of his ad- 
herents. 



Literary History 



George Herbert 
died. 



George Chapman 
died. 

Dekker and- Ben 
Jonson died. 



Ford and Massinger 
died. 

Publication of 
Browne's "Re- 
ligio Medici." 



300 THE RENAISSANCE 



Year 



1649 



1652 



1653 



1656 
1657 

1658 

1660 
1661 
1664 
1665 
1666 

1667 



1669 
1671 



1672 
1673 



1674 
1824 or 
1825 



Life and Works 



Milton became 

blind. 
Death of first wife. 



Second marriage. 
Andrew Marvell 

ass't secretary. 
Death of second 

wife. 



Third marriage. 



"Paradise Lost" 
published: the 
writing, except 
for earlier notes, 
begun in 1658, and 
completed at lat- 
est in 1665. Pub- 
lication delayed 
by Great Plague 
and Fire. 

"History of Eng- 
land." 

"Paradise Re- 
gained" pub- 
lished: begun 
probably in 1665, 
finished in 1666. 
" Samson Agonis- 
tes" published, 
written probably 
after 1667. 

" Artis Logicse." 

"Of True Religion, 
Heresy, and 
Schism." 

Milton died. 

" Treatise on Chris- 
tian Doctrine" 
discovered and 
published : writ- 
ten after the Res- 
toration. 



General English 
History 



Abolition of mon- 
archy and House 
of Lords by Par- 
liament. 



Long Parliament 
dissolved. Pro- 
tectorate. 



Death of Cromwell. 
The Restoration. 



Great Plague. 
Great Fire of Lon- 
don. 



Literary History 



Webster died. 



Fuller died. 



Cowley and Taylor 

died. 
Swift born. 
Several of Dryden's 

works appeared. 



Steele born. 



Addison born. 



CHAPTER XII 



THE LITERATURE OF PURITANISM 

THIS will be a short chapter. Puritanism could 
be a potent factor in a great genius like Mil- 
ton's, but left to itself it did not produce much 
literature. It had other ways of manifesting itself, 
and its importance in seventeenth-century England 
is out of all proportion to its literary product. 

The Puritan was the result of an entirely neces- 
sary reaction from the revel of the senses that 
marked the later Renaissance. In the sixteenth cen- 
tury the Renaissance and the Reformation blended 
harmoniously ; in the seventeenth, they sprang 
apart. The Puritan was the child of the Reforma- 
tion alone, and the Reformation carried to an ex- 
treme. He was unaffected by the sweetness and 
light, the love of learning and beauty, in a word 
the Hellenism of the Renaissance ; he turned aside 
from it with scorn and hate, nourished himself on 
one Book only, though that the greatest, and became 
Hebraic in every fibre. He gave strange Scriptural 
names to his children ; his conversation was a curi- 
ous medley of Scriptural phrases. He had a noble 
moral strength, but he was often unlovely in aspect 
and manner, and intolerant and narrow. He enjoyed 
theological abstractions, and was always trying to 
" justify the ways of God to man." His asceticism 
was of a different type from that of the middle 

301 



302 



THE RENAISSANCE 



ages ; less compatible with the free play of the im- 
agination, which likes images better than abstrac- 
tions, more distrustful of beauty and of all that 
gives life charm, 

I. Puritan Literature 

It is easy to look at the unpleasant aspects of the 
great forces that were pulling men toward this 
world and away from it. We have seen the riot of 
sensuousness in the worldly literature of the Renais- 
sance ; on the other hand, Puritanism presents us 
with a literature often marked by an insufferable 
its weak- asperity. The mere titles of some of the Puritan 
tracts for the times illustrate this temper : " A 
Pleasant Purge for a Roman Catholic," " The Un- 
loveliness of Lovelocks," "Sighs from Hell," "A 
Declaration of the Vile and Wicked Waies of the 
Cruell Cavaliers." 
its Puritanism militant is not attractive. But when 

strength. ^ turn away from the Puritanism that was fighting 
the ungodly world, to the Puritanism that was seek- 
ing with solemn consecration of mind and spirit for 
personal holiness, we enter into the secret strength 
of the great Power in which our own Republic was 
founded, and bow in reverence before it. Of the 
deep spiritual fervor, of the passion for freedom, of 
the intellectual force, which showed themselves in 
Puritan character and theology, English literature, 
strictly speaking, holds no full expression. That 
expression is found in confessions of faith, and insti- 
tutions which, even though they be partially out- 
grown, must remain a monument to one of the most 



THE LITERATURE OF PURITANISM 303 



strenuous and impressive efforts ever made by the 
human race to uplift itself into the comprehension of 
the nature and the will of God. When we think 
what the real aim of the Puritans was, all criticism 
dwindles, and we cease to wonder at their indiffer- 
ence to beauty. 

One does not turn to the religious books which 
Puritanism copiously produced for the joy which art Richard 
must engender. Now and then, however, one of m5-i69i. 
these books becomes literature. Such a book is ''The 

Saints 

Baxter's " Saints' Everlasting Rest." It is written Everiast- 
with an ardor, a purity, an eloquence, which give it lefo. eS ' 
an enduring hold on the hearts of men. 

But there is one book in which all the harshness 
of Puritanism is turned to fragrance ; a book which John 
is still cherished next to the Bible by thousands of f628-i688. 
simple folk. This is Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress." 
It is the only book, missionaries tell us, apart from "The 
the Bible, which bears translation without change Progress," 
into Oriental languages and reaches the heathen 1678 ~ 1684, 
peoples with instant appeal. We put it in our 
thought beside the poems of Milton, when we 
wish to sum up the contribution of Puritanism to 
letters. 

The " Pilgrim's Progress " is the work, if not of 
an unlettered, at least of an uncultured man. There 
is absolutely no trace in it of the humanizing influ- 
ences of the Renaissance, of love of classical learning, 
or of ornament for its own sake. One influence, and 
one alone, has formed its style and thought and 
imagery — the influence of the Bible. Yet it is as 
intensely imaginative a work as the English genius 
ever produced. It is the great symbolic romance of 



304 



THE RENAISSANCE 



the seventeenth century, and bears the same relation 
to Puritanism that Langland's poem bears to the 
middle ages, and Spenser's to the Renaissance. In 
spirit, it reminds us more of Langland than of 
Spenser. But Bunyan differs from both Langland 
and Spenser in that he cares not one whit what 
may happen to the world around him. That is 
given over to the devil ; the duty of the Pilgrim is 
with eternity and his own soul alone. 

The book is a book of the plain people, not, like 
so much of the literature of the Renaissance, a book 
of the aristocracy. The immense influence of Puri- 
tanism in preparing the way for democracy is evi- 
dent in it. Christian, the hero, is no courtly knight ; 
he is a simple burgher of the middle class, a pedler 
with a pack on his back. His journey is a spiritual 
one, as he flees from the City of Destruction, and 
plods his weary way toward the heavenly Jerusalem ; 
but it is through seventeenth-century England that 
he passes, along its dusty, narrow roads, through its 
wicket gates, past its sweet meadows, its turnstiles, 
its country places, its occasional feudal castles, where 
the giants of the old romances might still well abide. 
The life of that middle class, which was just rising 
into prominence in the seventeenth century, is no- 
where so graphically pictured for us as in the " Pil- 
grim's Progress." 

Of the depth of spiritual experience shown in the 
book, one does not need to speak. Its theology has 
some elements not universal nor permanent, but its 
faith springs deep from the heart of Christendom, 
and will speak to that heart as long as there is any 
reality left to belief in God's love and in His justice, 



THE LITERATURE OF PURITANISM 305 



in the mystery of sin and the mystery of redemption. 
It is a stern book. It starts with the watchword, 
" Flee from the wrath to come," and the path of the 
fleeing Pilgrim is beset with many perils vividly 
described ; yet it has at times an exquisite tender- 
ness and beauty. Of the style it is enough to say 
that it is not unworthy of its model, the English 
Bible. Bunyan gave Puritan England what it 
needed : a book expressing, not the theology and 
intellectual conceptions which Milton had so nobly 
rendered, but the secrets of its hidden life. 

The book was begun in Bedford jail, where Bunyan 
spent twelve years of his life. He had been a tinker ; 
but after his conversion he became an itinerant 
preacher, and was imprisoned under the Restoration 
because he would not give up his delivery of his mes- 
sage. Bunyan wrote other books besides the " Pil- 
grim's Progress." The finest of these are: 44 Grace "Grace 
Abounding," the autobiography of his spiritual life, i n g," 
a book of singularly naive power and candor ; 44 The 1666 ' 
Life and Death of Mr. Badman," a grim bit of real- "Life and 
istic fiction, almost in the manner of Defoe; and Mr^Bad- 
44 The Holy War," an allegory which would be Jjgg " 
thought very fine had not the greater allegory 
overshadowed it. All these books are the work of 
a man of genius, all show Puritan faith at white 
heat ; yet Bunyan lives by the one book, 44 The 
Pilgrim's Progress." 

Bunyan was twenty years younger than Milton, 
and he lived till 1688. 44 The Pilgrim's Progress " 
was published in 1678, four years after Milton's 
death. By this time the Restoration was in full 
possession ; a spirit wholly new had taken possession 



306 



THE RENAISSANCE 



of art and letters. That new spirit we must take a 
new book to describe. 



II. Satires ok Puritanism 



Overbury, 
" Charac- 
ters," 
1614. 
Jonson, 
"The 
Alche- 
mist," 
1610. 

"Bartholo- 
mew 
Fair," 
1614. 



It is no wonder if some of the most vivid litera- 
ture that Puritanism called forth was in the line of 
antagonistic satire. The facile, graceful, gallant 
cavaliers attached to the court, their brilliant per- 
sonality still irradiated by the sunshine of the Re- 
naissance, were incapable of appreciating the religious 
strenuousness and intellectual force of the Puritan. 
For his devotion to the cause of freedom of con- 
science they cared nothing. To them he seemed 
simply irritating and absurd ; and all through the 
seventeenth century are to be found caricatures of 
Puritanism. Some of these are very funny. Such 
are certain sketches by Sir Thomas Overbury, in his 
book of " Characters," written early in the century ; 
such are Ben Jonson's irresistible pictures of the 
sanctimonious Brethren in " The Alchemist," or of 
Rabbi Zeal -of -the -Land -Busy, in "Bartholomew 
Fair." Urged by a group of the faithful to visit 
the riotous delights of the Fair, nay to eat roast pig 
therein, the Rabbi snuffles : — 

In the way of comfort to the weak, I will go and eat. 
I will eat exceedingly, and prophesy. . . 1 

Having accordingly gone, and eaten exceedingly, 
the Rabbi is forthwith seized with a saintly wrath 
against the merriment of the Fair, and kicks over the 
pedler's basket of gingerbread ; and in the racket 



1 " Bartholomew Fair," Act I, Scene I. 



THE LITERATUKE OF PURITANISM 



307 



that ensues, his voice is loudest of all as he bellows 
to the officer who seeks to stop his noise. — 

" Thou canst not : 'tis a sanctified noise. I will make 
a loud and a strong noise, till I have daunted the profane 
enemy." 1 

Another satirical picture of Puritanism, more 
famous, and even more unjust, is that given by 
Butler, in his * 4 Hudibras," a curious, clever, doggerel Butler, 
poem, in octosyllabic couplets, written toward the end bras/' 1 " 
of the century, when the Puritans had proved them- 1663 ~ 16 ' 
selves vigorous fighters. He laughs at the Puritans 
as sanctimonious prigs, and pictures them as argu- 
mentative, wrong-headed, quarrelsome people who 

" With more care keep holy-day 
The wrong, than others the right way, 
Compound for sins they are inclined to 
By damning those they have no mind to : 
Still so perverse and opposite 
As if they worshipped God for spite. 

###### 

Bather than fail, they will defy 

That which they love most tenderly, 

Quarrel with minced-pies, and disparage 

Their best and dearest friend, — plum-porridge : 

Fat pig, and goose itself, oppose, 

And blaspheme custard through the nose." 2 

His poem had an immense vogue ; but the picture is 
so overdrawn as to be ridiculous, and in some respects 
it is wholly false. 

1 Act in, Scene L 

2 •■ Hudibras," Part I, Canto L 



308 



THE RENAISSANCE 



REFERENCE BOOKS 

Butler's Hudibras, over which an entertaining hour may 
be spent, is in Morley's Universal Library. Selections in 
Ward. Editions of the " Pilgrim's Progress " are too numer- 
ous to mention. "Grace Abounding" is in the Clarendon 
Press edition. Lives of Bunyan are by J. A. Froude (English 
Men of Letters) and Edmund Venables (Great Writers). 
J. Tulloch, English Puritanism and its Leaders : Cromwell, 
Milton, Baxter, Bunyan. Macaulay's Essay on Milton gives 
a famous panegyric on the Puritan, while Matthew Arnold, 
in his " Literature and Dogma," and " Culture and Anarchy," 
discusses the Puritan type from a less favorable point of view. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

Study the influence of the Bible on Bunyan's style. What 
did he gain, what lose, by being an ignorant man ? Compare 
his allegory in some detail with that of Spenser, of Langland. 
Describe seventeenth-century England as it is seen in his book. 



PART IV 

THE AGE OF PROSE 



CHAPTER I 



THE CHANGE IN TASTE 

I. The New Temper 

TMAGINATION and passion had been the great 
■*■ forces that governed English literature from 
the beginning. Other forces had, to be sure, been 
cooperating with these during the last one hundred 
and fifty years : the desire for facts, such as we see 
illustrated in the works of Bacon ; the desire for defi- 
nite principles in art, such as we see in the works of 
Jonson. But these instincts, though present, had 
been subordinate. It was the romantic temper that 
produced Arthurian romance, the works of Chaucer, 
the "Faerie Queene," and, blending with the knowl- 
edge of experience, the dramas of Shakespeare. 

The romantic temper loves freedom ; it loves vari- 
ety. It works best under excitement ; it is in a con- 
stant attitude of expectant wonder. It loves beauty, 
too, but beauty, as has well been said, touched 
with strangeness. This temper, indulged without 
restraint, had led to strange excesses; and it came 
to pass in time that men wearied of it. The seven- 
teenth century had been full of sensations ; we have 
been able only to hint at its violent extremes. Now 
a great reaction set in. People were exhausted by 
all these shocks. They did not want to press into 
new regions of thought and emotion ; they wanted 

311 



312 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



to understand what they had, to tabulate, to arrange. 
They craved uniformity, placidity, monotony even. 
Imagination and passion, both a little weary, with- 
drew from sight into the inmost recesses of men's 
natures ; withdrew so far that they seemed lost for- 
ever. Reason and intelligence — salutary powers 
always, essential at that juncture — assumed exclu- 
sive command. A love of science arose, illustrated 
by the foundation, in 1660, of the Royal Society, the 
purpose of which was the investigation of natural 
Rise of phenomena. And prose, which had always led a 
prose ' subordinate, though an increasingly distinct, exist- 
ence, became before long the dominant form of art. 



II. Periods of the Age of Prose 

This Age of Prose in English literature is often 
called the Classical Age. The reason is that people 
at this time first began to read the classic authors, 
not so much with the childlike delight of the Renais- 
sance in the discovery of a new world of beauty and 
wisdom, but with the aim of imitation. The theory 
was followed that to copy the ancients was the one 
goal of modern art. Moreover, there were certain 
points of real affinity between the Greek and Roman 
temper, especially the Roman, and the temper of the 
eighteenth century. The distaste for mystery, the 
stress placed on reason, sanity, and clearness of 
thought, the desire for law and order rather than 
for freedom and variety, are all real marks of the clas- 
sic spirit as distinguished from the romantic. At 
the same time, it is an obvious misnomer to apply 



THE CHANGE IN TASTE 313 

to the work of Pope and Dryden the same adjective 
that one applies to Homer and iEschylus and Vir- 
gil. If we use the term " classic " at all, we should 
put a modifying adverb before it, and call this the 
Pseudo-Classic Age. But the term, Age of Prose, 
seems, all things considered, more satisfactory. 

Whatever we call the period, it is an absolutely 
distinct one. It lasted about one hundred and 
twenty-five years, and it falls naturally into three 
divisions : — 

1660-1702. The first division opens with the Res- The Age of 
toration. It was the Stuart dynasty that was Dryden ' 
restored, though before the period was over the 
Revolution of 1688 placed William of Orange, who 
had married a Stuart princess, on the throne. In 
literary study, we may most conveniently remember 
this as the Age of Dryden ; for Dryden was the com- 
manding man of letters of the time. He wrote both 
poetry and prose, and his prose was at least as sig- 
nificant as his poetry. 

1702-1744. The first part of this period is most The Age of 
conveniently named from the reigning monarch, the 
Age of Queen Anne. In 1714, the House of Han- 
over was established on the throne. No one author 
dominated the world of letters. Pope (d. 1744) 
was the most notable writer of verse, but the prose 
essayists, especially Addison and Swift, were yet 
more representative. 

1744-1789. During this period, the Georges, dull The Age of 

j . , -, ,. -. , Johnson. 

and unpicturesque monarchs, continued to reign. 
The end coincides with no event in English history, 
but with the Fall of the Bastille in France. In 
literature, the period was dominated by the massive 



314 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



figure of Samuel Johnson. Johnson is remembered 
almost solely as a prose writer. By 1789 America 
was a free country and the modern world was born. 

III. Characteristics of the Age of Prose 

The best way to realize the change in taste that 
marks this period is through illustrations. A cur- 
sory examination of the books of the time shows what 
niustra- words were in the ascendant. " Admirable," judi- 
taste° f cious," "elegant," "graceful," "polite," are the favor- 
ite adjectives ; "enthusiastic" is a frequent term of 
reproach. We hear of " invention," of " imitation " ; 
of passion or imagination never. " Nature " is a term 
often invoked ; but, to use the words of Pope, " 'tis 
nature still, but nature methodized." Above all, 
"wit," by which men then meant cleverness and intelli- 
gence, is the word that recurs a dozen times on every 
page, the final summary of all that seems most desir- 
able in life and art. To chase this word through 
eighteenth-century literature is perhaps as good a 
way as can be found of feeling the prevailing instinct 
of the age. Another good way is to note the atti- 
tude of the time toward the great poets of earlier 
ages, the Masters of Romance. 

This is easy to do, especially in Dryden's time ; 
for that vigorous writer set to work to improve 
both Shakespeare and Milton. 
Dryden on Milton was of course Dryden's contemporary ; and 
the new writer, in the flush of popularity, asked the 
blind neglected bard for permission to turn " Para- 
dise Lost" into an opera. We may imagine the 
state of mind with which Milton consented. Dry- 



THE CHANGE IN TASTE 



315 



den did the thing. He translated Milton's organ 
verse into neatly turned rhymed couplets ; he ar- 
ranged the whole poem, or the leading portions of it, 
in operatic scenes. A specimen will suffice. Adam, 
fresh from the hand of the Creator, awakens upon a 
flowery bank. He wonders at himself, but proceeds 
to argue his own existence, — "I think, therefore I 
am," with Cartesian precision ; then, looking about 
him, immediately exclaims, " How full of ornament 
is all I view . . . in this well-ordered scene." Pres- 
ently, we find ourselves in the presence of Eve, 
coquetting with her reflection in a fountain. Adam 
draws near, and wooes her with due decorum of com- 
pliments ; she is inclined to him, yet, with inimitable 
instinct for the etiquette of the occasion, murmurs : — 

" Some restraining thought, I know not why, 
Tells me you long should beg, I long deny." 

If, even with Milton, we hardly felt ourselves in the 
actual presence of primitive humanity, where are we 
now ? 

But the opera found warm admirers ; and certain 
instructive verses by one of these are after the fash- 
ion of the times prefixed to it : — 

" For Milton did the wealthy mine disclose, 
And rudely cast what you could well dispose. 

###### 
He first beheld the beauteous rustic maid, 
And to a place of strength the prize conveyed : 
You took her thence ; to Court this virgin brought, 
Drest her with gems, new-weaved her hard-spun 
thought 

And softest language, sweetest manners taught." 1 
1 Nathaniel Lee, the dramatist. 



316 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



Exactly ! And Milton's muse, brought to the 
court of Charles II, is a noteworthy object indeed. 
Equally suggestive was the treatment of Shake- 

Dryden on speare. Dryden rewrote two of Shakespeare's plays ; 

speare. " Antony and Cleopatra," which he shaped into the 
strongest of his own dramas, and renamed, " All for 
Love " ; and the " Tempest," which he manipulated 
in collaboration with a minor dramatist of the time, 
Sir William Davenant. Let us see what they made 
of that most magical, mystical, and profound of plays. 
But a glance at the scenery is enough ; the curtain 
rises on " Three walks of cypress trees ; each side 
walk leads to a cave, in one of which Prospero keeps 
his daughters, in the other Hippolito. The middle 
walk is of great depth and leads to an open part of 
the island." As implied, here, Miranda has been 
supplied with a twin sister ; and, to provide two 
pair of lovers, the happy thought occurred of match- 
ing the girl who had never seen a man with a man 
who had never seen a woman. This is Hippolito, 
who, although confined in an adjacent cave for twenty 
years, has never laid eyes upon his fair fellow-island- 
ers. Not content with this, Caliban is presented 
with a twin sister named Sycorax, and Ariel has " a 
gentle spirit " called Milcha " for his love." Surely 
the passion for symmetry could no farther go. 

Addison on A little later, we find a boyish poem of Addison, 

Cii£iuc©r 

and Spen- on " the Muse-possessed," valuable because it reflects 
the taste of his day, though for no other reason. 
This is how it speaks of Chaucer and Spenser: — 

" But age has rusted what the poet writ, 
Worn out his language, and obscured his wit. 



THE CHANGE IN TASTE 



317 



In vain he jests in his unpolished strain, 
And tries to make his readers laugh in vain. 
Old Spenser next, warmed with poetic rage, 
In ancient tales amused a barb'rous age, 

* # # # # 

But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore, 
Can charm an understanding age no more." 

We may conclude these illustrations of the taste 
of the age of prose by a quotation of a critic of some 
repute in his day, Thomas Rymer. " In the neigh- 
ing of a horse," says Rymer, " or in the growling 
of a mastiff, there is more meaning, there is as lively 
expression, and may I say more humanity, than many 
times in the tragical flights of Shakespeare." 

We must not think that this was a stupid period. The worth 
Not at all ; it was an age of unusual cleverness, temper?*^ 
The very awakening of the critical instinct, what- 
ever blunders accompanied it at first, was in itself 
a most important fact. Once before, at the begin- 
ning of the Elizabethan age, this instinct had stirred 
faintly ; but it had shrunk back, overborne by the 
great tide of creative energy. Now, the day was its 
own, and it did an essential work. Fortunately, 
English life was not to be stirred again till the end 
of the eighteenth century by any great or searching 
struggle, and in the comparative quietude people 
were to enter into fuller self-knowledge and fuller 
mastery over the means of expression. Emphasis 
was to change from substance to style ; correctness 
was to be more sought than originality. If the 
resultant literature seems a little tame to us, we 
must remember that to seek positive standards of 
excellence in style is a quest of high importance. 



318 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



It is a task that could only be attempted when 
passion burned low ; to watch the stages of its 
accomplishment is an occupation full of interest. 
The influ- The foreign influence under which this work was 
France. carried on, was, next to the classics, the literature of 
France. During the Renaissance, from the days of 
Chaucer, indeed until the days of Ford, England 
had turned for inspiration to Italy. Next to Italy, 
Spain had been in most vital relations with her. 
Now all this was changed. It was still a Latin 
race which was, during the next hundred years, 
to affect her most profoundly, but a race in which 
the instincts of logic were stronger than those 
of imagination, a race always marked by a subtle 
feeling for perfection of form. The seventeenth 
century was, we must remember, the blossoming 
time of French literature ; the age of Moliere and 
Corneille and Racine, of Bossuet, of Boileau. It is 
easy to exaggerate the direct influence which the 
French had over English letters ; but a strong 
connection is indisputable, from the time when the 
court of Charles II returned from France, to the 
French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

General authorities for the Age of Prose : Gosse, From 
Shakespeare to Pope (traces the gradual change in taste 
through the seventeenth century) ; Eighteenth Century Litera- 
ture. Perry, Eighteenth Century Literature. Taine, Bk. III. 
Saintsbury, Short History of English Literature, Bks. VIII 
and IX. W. C. Sydney, Social Life in England from the 
Restoration to the Revolution; England and the English in 
the Eighteenth Century. Lecky, History of England in the 



THE CHANGE IN TASTE 



319 



Eighteenth Century. Leslie Stephen, History of English 
Thought in the Eighteenth Century. See Macaulay's His- 
tory of England, Vol. I, Ch. Ill, for famous description of the 
condition of England on the accession of Charles II. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

The best way to make the change in taste vivid is to bring 
short, sharply contrasted passages from the romantic and the 
Augustan literatures before the class for analysis. For instance, 
Spenser's description of Belphoebe, "Faerie Queene," Bk. II, 
Canto III, may be compared with Pope's description of Be- 
linda in the " Rape of the Lock " ; the description of the voyage 
of Cleopatra in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" may 
be set against that given by Dryden in " All for Love." A 
satirical portrait like Dryden's Zimri or Achitophel, or Pope's 
Atticus, may be compared with Shakespeare's presentation of 
Henry V or Macbeth, and a general discussion may be aroused 
on the new point of view, and new method in studying human 
life, signified by the rise of satire. In prose, single sentences 
from Milton or Browne or Jeremy Taylor should be opposed to 
brief passages from Dryden or Addison. The more detailed 
this work is, the more instructive it will be found, and after an 
introductory drill of this kind the student can go on quietly 
and intelligently with the study of the consecutive literary his- 
tory and the chief personalities of the time. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

The brief treatment in the text could well be supplemented, 
if time permits, by a study of the gradual approach of the 
classical spirit and the first attempts in the new style in Waller, 
Cowley, etc. A lecture on the seventeenth-century literature of 
France in its relation to that of England would also be useful. 



CHAPTER II 



THE AGE OF DRYDEN 



I. Revival of Classicism 



Edmund 

Waller, 

1605-1687. 

Sir John 
Denham , 
1615-1668. 



Abraham 

Cowley, 

1618-1667. 



Andrew 
Mar veil, 
1621-1678. 



IT would be interesting, had we time, to go back 
and trace the beginning of the new impulse. 
The men in whom it appeared were minor writers, 
but significant ones. The chief were Edmund Wal- 
ler, who as early as 1623 was writing heroic couplets 
as even as Pope's, and Sir John Denham, who pub- 
lished in 1642 a dull topographical poem, " Cooper's 
Hill," in couplets of the new cadence. Two very 
interesting men, Abraham Cowley and Andrew Mar- 
veil, seem in parts of their work belated Elizabethans, 
visited by flashes of living imagination, and at other 
times frigid though expert practitioners in the new 
fashion. Cowley produced, besides lyrics of the fan- 
tastic type of the later Renaissance, and couplets 
predicting the age of prose, a species of elaborated 
odes which he called Pindaric, which found many 
imitators. Marvell was Milton's secretary, a real 
poet at heart. 

But no sooner had the gay court of Charles II 
returned to England, than the new spirit became 
wholly dominant. One man, of rare intellectual 
vigor, gave it the impetus that it long retained. 
This was John Dryden. He towered above all the 

320 



THE AGE OF DRYDEN 



321 



other writers of his age. It is better to spend our 
time on him than to discuss minor authors. 



II. John Dryden 

Dry den was born in 1631, and grew up during 1631-1700. 
stirring times. His family connections leaned to 
Puritanism, and his first poem was a lament on the 
death of Cromwell. But he did not mix his politics 
with ideals like the men of the preceding generation, 
and his next significant poem was a courtly welcome 
to Charles II, " Astrsea Redux." He was about thirty 
years old at this time ; twenty-three years younger Review of 
than Milton. From now on he was an indefatigable 
and most versatile writer, and in variety of scope 
and vigor of handling his work thoroughly expresses 
the tastes, standards, interests, of his age. Yet if Discussion 
we put him in our minds between Pope and Shake- of Ms 
speare, we perceive that he is in a way a figure of 
transition. There is a rush, a fervor, an energy, 
about his work, which one does not find in the more 
highly polished writings of the next generation ; we 
may discern in this the last stir of the retreating 
tide of life that marked the Renaissance. In the 
variety of forms which he attempted we note the 
same transition. Sometimes he presses into quite 
new modes of artistic expression ; sometimes he 
clings to the old. 

During eighteen years Dryden worked chiefly as a Dramat i C 
dramatist and produced twenty-two plays. In 1642, period, 
at the outbreak of the Civil War, Puritanism had 
closed the theatres. Now the spirit of this world, 
returning to power, opened them again. Women 



322 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



Work 
showing 
influence 
of the 
Renais- 



Dramas. 
"The Wild 
Gallant," 
1663. 

"The 
Indian 
Emperor," 
1665. 

" The Con- 
quest of 
Granada," 
1670. 

" Aureng- 

zebe," 

1675. 

"All for 

Love," 

1678. 



were introduced as actors for the first time, the 
ballet appeared, scenery was much developed ; the 
old primitive traditions were replaced by the modern 
stage. Dryden catered to the lively hunger of a 
people dramatically starved for twenty years. The 
time arrived, however, when he wearied of drama, 
and abandoned it, until the Revolution which placed 
William and Mary on the throne so injured his 
prospects that he returned, for the sake of making 
money, to a little unimportant play-writing. 

Let us look at his plays. The next period was to 
discard drama almost altogether. Dryden wrote 
plays with a certain zest, but tried to write them by 
rule. He put a great deal of careful, energetic 
thinking upon the true principles of dramatic art. 
He produced comedies, like "The Wild Gallant," 
and tragedies like "The Indian Emperor," "The 
Conquest of Granada," and " Aurengzebe." These 
plays were what is called Heroic. They were in 
rhymed couplets, and Dryden mastered his instru- 
ment upon them. But after a time he tired of coup- 
lets, and deliberately "disencumbered himself of 
rhyme," in "All for Love," his adaptation of " Antony 
and Cleopatra." Now the heroic plays try to handle 
the high themes of passion and action loved by the 
free drama of the Renaissance ; but self-conscious 
art supplants impulse, invention rules instead of 
imagination, and violence is mistaken for intensity. 
The result is a cold absurdity such as the most ex- 
treme of the Jacobean dramatists was never guilty 
of. We feel that the whole thing is reasoned out 
beforehand ; and, indeed, the inveterate habit of 
dispute invades even the most impassioned mo- 
ments : — 



THE AGE OF DRYDEN 



323 



" Have I not answered all you can invent, 
Even the least shadow of an argument ? " 

queries a distracted lover of his lady in the crisis 
of his fate. The Duke of Buckingham wrote a 
parody of heroic plays, called " The Rehearsal," 
which is still one of the most entertaining things in 
English literature. It practically killed them. 

During his dramatic period Dryden had also been Lyrics, 
writing lyrics, and had produced one brilliant poem, Mirab- 
the "Annus Mirabilis," inspired by contemporary igg^ 
politics and by the great fire of London. His affin- 
ity for the Renaissance is shown in the very fact 
that he wrote lyrics : for the next generation dis- 
carded lyrics with drama, and disliked all manipula- 
tion of verse except the heroic couplet. . The " Ode 
on St. Cecilia's Day " and that on Mrs. Anne Killi- 
grew are his most famous lyrics, and they are fine 
things. Eloquence, rhetoric, studied workmanship, 
replace inspiration. These poems retain forever a 
place in English letters ; but they are hardly the 
stuff of pure poetry. 

In his remaining writings, Dryden advanced to his Work of 
greatest success. He gave up reworking exhausted era. 
inspirations, and perfected with his strong and fertile 
mind new forms of expression, which delighted the 
world for over a century. Critical prose, satire, and 
didactic verse were distinctive art forms of the new 
era. Here Dryden's keen intelligence moved easily 
in the world familiar to him ; making no effort to 
explore an ideal realm, or the kingdoms of romance, 
but contented with the artificial and polished society 
of the seventeenth century. 



324 



THE AGE OF PKOSE 



Prose 
criticism. 



Satirical 
and didac- 
tic verse. 
" Absalom 
and Achit- 
ophel," 
1681. 

" The 
Medal," 
1682. 
" Mac- 
Fleck- 
noe," 1682. 

Satires. 



Dryden's prefaces to his plays are really more im- 
portant than the plays themselves, for they mark 
the beginning of modern prose criticism. He is 
not a man who has strayed into prose by mistake, 
as we are tempted to think was the case with Mil- 
ton or Sir Thomas Browne ; he writes in this me- 
dium con amove. His prose possesses a freedom 
from inversions and involutions, a clarity of diction 
and sentence structure, such as we have not found 
before. It is full of strong common sense, and its 
sincere interest in literary matters is very pleasing. 
It is of no use to turn to Dryden, however, for 
any deep insight into critical principles. He goes 
as far as clear intelligence can carry him, but he 
has slight, if any, perception of the more elusive 
qualities that are out of the range of conscious in- 
vention and composition. 

Dryden's splendid satires, " Absalom and Achit- 
ophel," "The Medal," and " MacFlecknoe," were 
called forth by the party politics and the literary 
dissensions of his day. A new kind of realism is 
found in them. It is not the Shakespearean kind, 
for it starts, not with sympathy, but with analysis, 
but it does dissect the tissues nearest the skin with 
amazing keenness. Every person sketched was un- 
mistakable, and each one was defined by his greatest 
weakness. The workmanship of these poems was 
brilliant ; it is still an intellectual joy to read the clear, 
scathing lines in which every word brings out into 
sharper relief the personality of Achitophel-Shaftes- 
bury, or Zimri-Buckingham. There can be no ques- 
tion that contempt and distaste — the natural ani- 
mus of satire — can carry one a certain distance in 



THE AGE OF DRYDEN 



325 



the understanding of character ; just how far, is 
matter for debate. 

Equally clever were his argumentative poems. "Reiigio 
The first of these, " Reiigio Laici," is an argument J^. 1 '" 
for the Church of England. It sounds quite con- 
vincing, till one reads Dryden's other theological 
poem, " The Hind and the Panther," which is a yet "The Hind 
abler plea for the Church of Rome. Dry den had p^her " 
become a Roman Catholic in 1686, on the accession 1687, 
of the Romanist king, James II, and there is some- 
thing entertaining in the cheerful alacrity with 
which he argues for his new faith. Milton had died Religious 
before these poems were written ; one wonders what didactic 
he would have thought of them. His religion had verse " 
been cold and austere, but it controlled the inmost 
springs of life and conduct. Dryden's was a purely 
intellectual matter. It bore no relation to emotion 
or experience. Very likely, he was quite sincere in 
his change of church. If he was convinced of the 
truth of a set of arguments in favor of a new creed, 
he adopted them with no inward struggle. He saw 
no impropriety in presenting churches under the 
allegorical disguise of animals. We listen to the 
neatly turned couplets in which the beasts who repre- 
sent the Roman and the Anglican Churches, the Hind 
and the Panther, discourse. We admire, and rub our 
eyes, wondering whether what is going on is actually 
a discussion of one of the most solemn themes in the 
whole world. 

It is characteristic that some of Dryden's best Transia- 
work was in the form of translations. These show 
the lively interest in literary matters taken by the 
age. The time felt its own mission to be the work- 



326 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



verse. 



ing over of material already accumulated into better 
and more correct form. Dryden's versions of Chaucer 
and Boccaccio contain some of his best writing. His 
" Virgil," most important work in this line was, however, his 
conscientious and praiseworthy translation of Virgil. 
"Fables, The handling of the measure, and in a way the 
andMod- conduct of the narrative, in these poems, is de- 
em," 1700. serving of much praise. Like the greater part of 
Dryden's Dryden's work, they are written in couplets ; and 
here, as elsewhere, feeling the splendid ardor of 
movement, the " energy divine " of his verse, we un- 
derstand the lines of Gray in the next century allud- 
ing to the couplet, where, putting Dryden next to 
Milton, he exclaims : — 

" Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car 
Wide o'er the fields of glory bear 
Two coursers of ethereal race, 
With necks in thunder clothed and loud resounding 
pace." 

Resounding pace ; vigor, clearness, sincerity, modera- 
tion, — these are the characteristics of the genius of 
Dryden. They are admirable qualities ; they had 
been too much ignored, and were exactly what our 
literature at the time most needed. But they are 
the qualities of prose, and, although most of Dryden's 
work was in verse, it was as the inaugurator of the 
age of prose that he is most justly remembered. 

In 1700 Dryden died. His private life had not 
been unhappy. He had been healthily and heartily 
pre-occupied with the interests of the visible world 
around him ; for many years before his death he had 
held a commanding place in English letters, and 



THE AGE OF DRYDEN 



327 



had been looked up to by the young writers of the 
rising generation somewhat as Ben Jonson had been 
in his day. He never suffered as Milton suffered ; 
on the other hand, he possessed no world of ideal 
imaginings, such as Milton could withdraw into when 
he would. 

III. Other Literature of the Restoration 

We shall dwell but briefly on the other literature Comedy, 
of this period. There was a strong dramatic devel- 
opment apart from Dryden ; two tragedies of his 
contemporary, Thomas Otway, are still acted ; but, 
so far at least as comedy was concerned, the less 
said about the drama the better. In the hands of 
Etherege, of Wycherley, of Congreve, of Farquhar, 
of Vanbrugh, it pandered to the very worst ele- 
ments in the society of the time. It reflected with 
singular accuracy the fashionable world around ; it 
scintillated with gayety, sprightly grace, and wit ; 
it is forgotten. The Jacobean drama had been fear- 
less in speech and theme to a degree intolerable to 
our modern ears and taste ; but sincerity of pas- 
sion and imaginative insight always kept it from 
being wholly ignoble. The comedy of the Restora- 
tion is deadened by its own indecency. It repre- 
sents the only moment when English literature has 
yielded itself wholly and without reserve to the do- 
minion of the senses ; and the senses, when they 
have had, as here, their perfect work, kill poetry. 
The sturdy Puritanism still extant in late seven- 
teenth-century England rose at last to deal this de- 
praved drama its death blow. A good old divine, 



328 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



Rise of 
Memoirs. 



John 
Evelyn's 
" Diary," 
1641-1697. 



Samuel 
Pepys 's 
"Diary," 
1660-1669. 



Jeremy Collier, was its instrument, and it is re- 
freshing still to read the honest indignation of his 
pamphlet, " A short View of the Immorality and Pro- 
faneness of the British Stage." "The characters," 
says Collier, in describing this "superlatively scan- 
dalous " stage, " The characters do all forget them- 
selves extreamely." It is really unnecessary to say 
anything further. 

One other significant matter is to be noted in the 
literary world ; the rise of those often delightful 
records of private lives and daily doings which we 
call Journals or Memoirs. They suggest the grow- 
ing interest in the affairs of simple ordinary life. 
The most famous writers of this kind were John 
Evelyn and Samuel Pepys ; of these, Evelyn was 
the more estimable character, but he is not so good 
reading as the graceless Pepys, whose journal, writ- 
ten in cipher for his private delectation, is one of 
the most frank revelations of personality ever vouch- 
safed to an astonished world. History too at this 
time is very like memoirs, but we shall not mention 
the historians. Neither shall we discuss the men of 
science, nor the philosophers, like Hobbes and Locke, 
who were such great intellectual forces in the seven- 
teenth century. For the time is come when the 
harvest of books is so rich that at least in an ele- 
mentary work we can pause to treat only of those 
which directly and obviously, through their pre- 
sentation of life in the concrete and in beautiful 
form, belong to literature as an art. 



THE AGE OF DRYDEN 



329 



REFERENCE BOOKS 

The standard edition of Dryden is Scott's, ed. by Saints- 
bury. Globe edition of the non-dramatic works. Garnett, 
Age of Dryden. Saintsbury, Life of Dryden. William 
Strunk, Dryden's Essays on the Drama. Margaret Sher- 
wood, Dryden's Dramatic Theory and Practice. Lowell, 
essay on Dryden in Among my Books. Johnson, Life of 
Dryden, in Lives of the Poets. Macaulay, Essay on Dryden. 

" The Rehearsal," found in the Arber reprints, is one of 
the most instructive parodies in English literature. Charles 
Lamb, on the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century, in " Essays 
of Elia," has a brief criticism of distilled excellence. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

This should be almost wholly on Dryden. The selections 
in Ward's " English Poets " are enough to illustrate his lyric, 
his didactic verse, and his satire. A running series of ques- 
tions should elicit the distinctive characteristics of all this 
verse, and the difference between Dryden and the great masters 
of romance should be constantly pointed out, and the student 
be encouraged to discover his preferences. From now on it 
can be the aim of the teacher, far more distinctly than in the 
earlier periods of our literature, to develop in the student that 
true critical instinct which can only be formed when standards 
of comparison are established. Until the eighteenth century 
the chief aim in the study of literature is to quicken delight, 
appreciation, and sensitiveness ; now another aim should be 
added — the formation of sound judgment. 



TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

As the class will hardly have time to read an heroic play, 
the teacher might well analyze and summarize one, — say " The 
Conquest of Granada." To omit quotations from the burlesque 
passages in " The Rehearsal " would be to miss an opportunity. 

A lecture on the daily life of the times, constructed from 
Pepys, with copious quotations, would be quite worth giving. 



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CHAPTER III 



THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE; ITS POET 

ONE day, when Dry den was sitting in state at 
Will's Coffee House in the later years of his 
life, a sickly little lad, with large, dark, shining eyes, 
paid the place a visit and gazed reverently at the 
great man. His name was Alexander Pope, and 
this visit was a great event to him, for already he 
cared more about books and writers than about any- 
thing else in the world. This boy was to be Dry- 
den's successor. He was to carry to perfection the 
literary methods of Dryden's time, and the kinds of 
writing that Dryden inaugurated ; he was to be the 
most important writer of verse in the age of Queen 
Anne. 

Pope was born in 1688, the year of that Revolution Alexander 
which determined that the country should be per- 1688-4744. 
manently Protestant. But his parents were Roman 
Catholic, and this meant that Pope always lived a 
little apart from the run of society and politics in 
his day. At all events, a puny, suffering body would 
have doomed him to a life of seclusion. All his best 
interests were in literature ; to study his works is to 
study his biography. 

Pope was one of the most precocious of English Pope's life 

and work. 

authors. When he was twelve years old, he com- 
posed two thousand heroic couplets on a certain 
Prince Alcander, and it is significant that in the ze- 

333 



334 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



nith of his powers many years later he inserted some 
of these very couplets in his great work, " The Dun- 
ciad." There was, in truth, almost no development 
in Pope's style. He was still a lad of sixteen when 
he wrote certain poems which at once secured him 
" Pasto- recognition in literary circles, a series of " Pasto- 
1709. rals." In these poems, the couplet already rings 
delicately true. They are a cold mosaic from Theoc- 
ritus, Virgil, and Spenser. But they are surprising 
work for a boy. 

Even before the " Pastorals " were published, Pope 
had begun to form literary connections. He had 
admired, helped, probably quarrelled with, the old 
dramatist, Wycherley ; and he had received from a 
minor critic of the day, William Walsh, advice which 
he never forgot. Other English poets, Walsh told 
the young aspirant, had been great ; but no great 
poet had ever been correct. To correctness, there- 
fore, Pope set his efforts. It was Walsh also who 
emphasized to him the idea that the best and only 
hope for modern verse is the imitation of the an- 
cients ; this idea, too, which Pope clearly enunciated 
in the preface to his " Pastorals," he never disavowed, 
though instinct was sometimes too strong to allow 
him literally to follow it. 

In 1709, the "Pastorals" were published; and 
the period from this year till 1715, when the first 
volume of the " Iliad " came out, may be considered 
the first period of his work. His private life during 
this time and later was uneventful. He formed and 
broke sundry literary and personal connections, and 
lived quietly with his parents in the country not far 
from London. 



THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE 



335 



Shortly after the "Pastorals/' Pope wrote several 
other minor poems, the most important being " The 
Messiah," and "Windsor Forest." "The Messiah" "The 

T Tr . . i T Messiah," 

is a mosaic 01 passages from Isaiah and Virgil. It 1712. 
has fine rhetorical ring, and part of it has passed into "Windsor 
a familiar hymn, "Rise, crowned with light, imperial 1713. 
Salem, rise " ; but it has not much to do with either 
Christianity or poetry. Pope's boyhood was passed 
near Windsor Forest, and he might have given us a 
fine poem on its mighty shade, but he did not. He 
was interested in the forest, not for its beautiful 
mystery, but for its literary and political associations, 
and for the opportunities it offered to the sportsman. 

His first poem of great significance, was the "Essay " Essay on 
on Criticism." Here he polished, till they shone, the 1711. ' 
critical maxims which he found in Boileau's "Art 
Poetique " and elsewhere, and the conclusions of his 
own common sense. The poem has little continuity, 
but it admirably expresses the general critical stand- 
ards and methods of the time. 

A little longer treatment must be given to the "The Rape 
daintiest trifle that ever came from Pope's pen, Lock 6 " 
"The Rape of the Lock." It is a mock-heroic ^12-1714. 
poem in five cantos. A pretty society girl, Miss 
Arabella Fermor, was vexed because a young gentle- 
man, Lord Petre, had cut off one of her curls. 
Hoping to restore her to good humor, Pope, with 
scintillating wit and grace and neatness, though 
with a constant ripple of delicate satire, described 
the occasion, and incidentally the social life of the 
times. When he rewrote the poem, he added a 
machinery of fairy beings ; sylphs, who are, as he 
tells us, the disembodied presences of the coquettes 



336 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



Trans- 
lation of 
"The 
Iliad," 
1715-1720. 

Transla- 
tion of 
" The 
Odyssey," 
1723-1725. 



of the past, whose function it is to " tend the fair," 
while they hover around the scenes of their old tri- 
umphs. It is clever invention ; " The Rape of the 
Lock " has justly been called the imaginative epos 
of the age of Queen Anne. To put Pope's fairies 
beside Shakespeare's in the " Midsummer Night's 
Dream " and " The Tempest," to compare their 
tastes and functions, is a highly instructive and 
entertaining occupation. The poem as a whole is 
charmingly playful, if one does not shrink from the 
scorn of women and of society that gleams through 
its graceful raillery. The art of belittling was 
never carried further than in its whole treatment, 
nor was the anti-climax ever more effectively used 
than in many of its details. 

In 1715 Pope published the first books of his 
translation of " The Iliad " ; by 1725, he had com- 
pleted this, and had also produced, with the collabo- 
ration of others, a translation of "The Odyssey." 
This was the work that brought him widest fame 
and greatest fortune. Milton had received X10 
for the first edition of "Paradise Lost"; Pope was 
paid for his Homer, over X8000. We are shocked at 
the discrepancy, yet we may be glad of the indication 
of a growing interest in letters and of a public that 
bought books. Pope translating Homer is a curious 
spectacle. The pseudo-classic age thought it admired 
the ancients very much, but Pope is enough to show 
us that it had remarkably little idea what the ancients 
were really like. " It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, 
but it is not Homer," said Bentley, a critic in advance 
of his time, to the proud little author ; and the dic- 
tum has never been improved upon. Pope gives us 



THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE 



337 



resounding and spirited verse, but the effect of the 
translation is as if Hector and Paris and Achilles 
fought in periwigs. The poem had, however, genu- 
ine fire and movement, and, hybrid thing as it was, 
it proved, and has remained to this day, immensely 
popular. 

There is no object after this in following Pope's 
work chronologically, for his manner at fifty was 
much what it was at twelve, and it is more interest- 
ing to see the different sorts of things he liked to ^ Ess fy on 
write. He very much enjoyed composing didactic 1732-^1734. 
verse ; and his "Moral Essays" and "Essay on Man" "Moral 
remain the best examples our literature affords of ^32-5.736. 
this kind of work. The eighteenth century liked 
moral abstractions and general truths ; indeed, it 
relished nothing better than a series ■ of truisms 
neatly put. This Pope gave it. He did not pre- 
tend to originality ; in these poems he simply versi- 
fied the deistic philosophy of his friend, Bolingbroke. 
And with so perfect a felicity of concise and epi- 
grammatic expression did he do this that he bestowed 
on this philosophy a far longer life in the general 
mind than it deserved. 

But the native air of Pope was satire. This is 
already evident in " The Rape of the Lock," where 
he tries, as it were, to breathe the air of pure fancy, 
and fails. His best, most characteristic, and most 
enduring work, that where he really attains a great 
aim of the artist and sets his own personality free in Dunciad," 
effective form, is satirical. His " Imitations of Hor- 17 ^ 2 ', 1743' 
ace," his " Epistles," his " Dunciad," are work of this (t Imita _ 
class ; and they are all masterpieces. Pope's satire tions of ^ 
was not political, like that of Dryden ; it was nearly 1733-1737. 



338 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



all, one regrets to say, levelled against his personal 
enemies; and in the art of wounding he was certainly 
past master. Such a description as the famous por- 
trait of Addison, under the name Atticus, sticks 
like a burr to the memory of that amiable man. 
But even if we find Pope ill-natured, we can- 
not fail to admire the splendid ease of his satirical 
verse, the keenness of his wit, and his penetrat- 
ing eye. He belonged to a time that was inclined 
to satire, because it looked at men with the eyes of 
reason rather than of love, and he shared its attitude. 
We are glad that his greatest satire of all has a 
wider than personal application. This is the " Dun- 
ciad," written doubtless under the influence of the 
larger nature of Swift. The " Dunciad " is an attack 
on Dulness, modelled somewhat on Dryden's " Mac- 
Flecknoe," but with a stinging power all its own. 
It is perhaps the masterpiece of the verse of the 
period ; an attack on Dulness was exactly the work 
which the age of Queen Anne was best fitted to 
achieve, for whatever else may be said about that 
age, dull it was not. The special writers whom 
Pope singled out for ridicule in this poem are for- 
gotten, but this does not matter. There are always 
plenty of the tribe of Dunces left. We may almost 
say that any person must belong to the tribe who 
fails to enjoy the biting wit of this poem, and the 
great final picture of the whole universe crumbling 
away while chaos returns to reign. 
The heroic We have now passed in review the principal phases 

couplet. of pope , g wQrk> Qf U S51 lineg produced by him? 

excluding translations, all but 1,468 are in heroic 
couplets. The chief excellence and capacity of the 



THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE 



339 



couplet is in neat epigram, clever antithesis, in con- 
densation, brilliancy, point. Pope used it for all 
imaginable purposes. He condemned Spenser for 
introducing a variety of meters in the " Shepherd's 
Calendar." Did he himself wish to express the 
graceful simplicity of rustic life ? He used the 
rhymed couplet. Was his theme the throbbing 
passion of a cloistered woman, torn by remorse and 
desire ? It was in rhymed couplets that her laments 
reached his ear. Was it the flutter of fairy beings 
around the form of a lovely maiden ? Their very 
flutter was in antithetical beats. Was it the clash 
and clang of arms in the primitive warfare of heroes ? 
Their blows were symmetrically measured. All this 
seems very strange to us ; but no other metrical 
movement pleased the ear of Pope's contemporaries. 
We feel in only one department of his writing that 
the couplet is exactly adapted to what he wishes to 
convey ; this is, of course, in his satires. Here each 
line stabs, and leaves no ragged edges to the wound. 

Criticism, translation, ethical treatises in verse, Literary 
satires, — these are Pope's subjects. They were the condltlor 
staple subjects of his age. We do not find literature 
in the eighteenth century seeking to pursue and cap- 
ture the retreating vision of the winged ideal ; it is 
pedestrian, realistic, haunted by no glamour of illu- 
sion. In such a period personal interests are sure 
to become very important in men's minds. Men of 
letters were preoccupied, not with great dreams nor 
with great causes, but with little contemporary affairs. 
Literature had become more than ever before a dis- 
tinct profession; but the literary world was a narrow 
one; it centred in London, which was still quite a 



340 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



small town. All the authors of the day, therefore, 
knew one another, and met at the clubs which were 
becoming a feature of the times. Literary history 
becomes largely a record of their intrigues, animosi- 
Pope's ties, and friendships. In all these, Pope took his 

person- 

ality. part. He was not strong enough to share much in 
club life, but at his little villa at Twickenham, where 
he had " methodized nature " to his heart's content, 
he enjoyed the converse of his friends. We may know 
a great deal about his private life if we will; his 
friendships, often breaking into feuds, with Addison, 
with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, with Swift, with 
Bolingbroke, with Gay, and others; the queer tricks 
to which he resorted to raise his reputation ; the or- 
naments with which he decked the damp little arti- 
ficial grotto on his grounds which was his great 
delight. He was an irascible, sickly, oversensitive, 
intensely human man. He was often spiteful, and 
his clever pen enabled him to make his small spites 
immortal. But we must also remember to his credit 
that he was a devoted and tender son, who soothed 
with truest filial devotion the last years of his aged 
mother ; that he loved some of his friends, like Swift 
and Gay, with constant loyalty, if he quarrelled with 
others ; that to one woman friend, Martha Blount, 
he showed the most delicate and faithful affection ; 
and that he dedicated his whole life, with unswerving 
enthusiasm, to the cause of literature. 

death 5 When Pope was fifty-six years old, he escaped 

from what he himself calls "that long disease, my 
life." His deathbed was touching. His friends, 
who loved him well, had gathered around him. 
" What is that ? " said he, waving his skinny arm 



THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE 



341 



above the counterpane; then, sinking back on his pil- 
lows with a smile of wonderful sweetness : " 'Twas 
a vision ! " The clever little man had not seen many 
visions in his lifetime; we are glad if one came to 
him when he was dying. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Globe edition of Pope. Letters of Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu. Life of Pope, by Leslie Stephen, English Men 
of Letters Series. Dennis, The Age of Pope. Life, by John- 
son, edited by Kate Stephens. Lowell, essay in My Study 
Windows. Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library, Pope as a 
moralist. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

The " Rape of the Lock," the first canto of the " Essay on 
Man," a few aphorisms from the "Essay on Criticism," the 
satirical portrait of Addison in the " Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," 
and the conclusion of the " Dunciad " should be read. Recita- 
tions of epigrams from Pope, selected by the student, will help 
to make the chief merits of his style appreciated. A special 
topic may be given by a student who reads Homer, showing 
how Pope altered Homer. Pope's friendships also afford oppor- 
tunity for a pleasant special study, and Pope's quarrels for one 
less pleasant but not uninstructive. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

The range of Pope's ethics would probably better be handled 
by the teacher than by the class. Leslie Stephen's analysis in 
the books referred to above, and also in the " History of Eng- 
lish Thought in the Eighteenth Century," is admirable. Ruskin 
has also, in " Fors Clavigera," an interesting tribute to the 
" Essay on Man." 



CHAPTER IV 



PROSE OF THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE 

I. The Rise of Prose 

A LL the good qualities of Pope's poetry appear 
to equal advantage in contemporary prose. 
The fact is significant. In the seventeenth century 
some noble prose had been written, more fervid and of 
richer harmonies than any we find in the eighteenth. 
But, in exact reverse to what happens now, the 
qualities that make the prose of Sir Thomas Browne 
or Jeremy Taylor delightful, are qualities shared 
with poetry. In the time of Dryden prose began to 
develop standards and virtues of its own; in the time 
of Addison and Swift it perfects these virtues, and 
becomes, what England had not possessed before, a 
thoroughly suitable instrument for conveying that 
wide range of everyday experience which deserves 
to get into literature, but is not fittingly expressed 
through poetry. No single life, it is to be hoped, is 
all prose ; none certainly is all poetry. A nation, 
like a person, needs both means of expression. 

A new reading public was rapidly forming during 
the age of Queen Anne. Education was getting 
diffused, the great middle class was becoming intel- 
ligent as well as powerful, books were multiplying. 
There had been a time when literature addressed 
itself chiefly to the court, or to chosen scholars, 

342 



PROSE OF THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE 343 



when the visible drama which men could hear or see 
was the popular art form. Now all this was changed. 
The new public craved a new kind of books. We 
can imagine how it rejoiced in a prose that was clear, 
supple, conversational, while yet possessed of a polish 
and purity which made it quite different from mere 
written talk. Such was the prose given by Swift, 
Addison, and Steele. Let us look at these three 
men. 

II. Jonathan Swift 

To many people, Swift seems the greatest spirit of 1667-1745. 
his time, and the most interesting. This is because 
his strong, sad nature was torn by inward conflict, and 
was never quite at home, as the natures of most of 
his contemporaries were, in the social ceremonials 
and party strifes that preoccupied the age. Swift 
passed much of his life in Irish exile, far from Lon- 
don, the one intellectual centre of his day. Under- 
stand him aright, and we shall see that he was from 
first to last an exile in spirit. He had lost memory 
or hope perhaps of a better country, but he was not 
content with what he knew. 

Swift was twenty-one years older than Pope, for Early life, 
he was born in 1667. Before the seventeenth cen- 
tury ended he had written some of his most brilliant 
books. He was a relative of Dryden ; " Cousin Swift, 
you will never be a poet," or as another version has 
it, " a Pindaric poet," said the great man to the greater, 
on one occasion. He was also a relative of Sir Will- 
iam Temple. Temple was a retired statesman, him- 
self a pleasant essayist and patron of men of letters ; 



344 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



and in his household Swift passed several years as 
secretary. It was here that he wrote his first note- 
worthy books, " The Battle of the Books," and "The 
Tale of a Tub," both in 1697. 
^Battle of « The Battle of the Books " is a clever allegory, 
Books," bearing on the controversy then in vogue concerning 
1697, pub- the relative merits of the ancients and the moderns. 
i704. d 1^ i s nere that occurs the famous phrase, "sweetness 
and light," which Matthew Arnold was to adopt. 
"The Tale But " The Tale of a Tub" is of wider interest. It is 

of a Tub," . . 

written a satirical allegory describing the religious parties of 
published England under the names of Peter, who represented 
the Church of Rome, Jack, who stood for the Cal- 
vinistic sects, and Martin, the type of the Anglican 
and Lutheran Churches. The characters and adven- 
tures of the three brothers are described with much 
cleverness, but the book is not reverent; and, though 
one is sorry for Swift, one cannot wonder if " The 
Tale of a Tub " hindered his advancement in the 
Church. 

For to the Church this sardonic young man be- 
longed. He was, according to his lights, a perfectly 
honest clergyman. He admired the liturgy of the 
Prayer-Book, and he conscientiously defended the 
Anglican position against the Deists, who were be- 
coming popular in his day. But his weapon of 
defence was almost always satire, as in the case of 
one of the ablest satirical pamphlets ever written, his 
"Argument against abolishing Christianity," the 
smooth scathing irony of which seems far indeed 
removed from the method and spirit of the Gospels. 

About 1710 Swift threw himself with energy into 
the political strife of the day. He had originally 



PROSE OF THE AGE OF QUEEX ANNE 345 



been a Whiff, but he now identified himself with Political 

. activity. 

the Tories, and did vigorous pamphleteering on 
their behalf. They gave him their personal friend- 
ship, and for a time he had much political influ- 
ence. But he never received the preferment which 
he seemingly desired. In 1713 he was made Dean 
of St. Patrick's in Dublin, a position which was Dean of St. 

Patrick's 

very far from satisfying his ambition. The death Dublin, ' 

1713 

of the queen, however, in 1714, threw the Tories 
out of power, and destroyed all further hopes for 
Swift. 

The rest of his life, accordingly, he spent in Ireland, 
and he became a great Irish patriot, which was better 
than being a church dignitary in England. He put 
his powerful pen at the service of 44 that most distress- 
ful country." Her sufferings drew from him at one 
time the brilliant series of 44 Drapier's Letters," argu- "Letters 
ing against the introduction of a currency which jfrapie^ " 
would, as he believed, injure the national interests ; 1724 > 1725 - 
at another time, he poured from his indignant soul "Modest 
one of the most amazing pieces of restrained irony £ r r °pre- al 
in our own or any language, his 44 Modest Proposal J£? cSfid- 
for preventing Children of Poor People from being p e ^ r of 
a Burden." The Irish became passionately devoted People 

-i i • »n , . from 

to him, and his name is still revered among their being a 

, Burden," 

peasantry. 1729. 

In 1726 and 1727 we find Swift in London : pay- 
ing pleasant visits to Pope, to whom he was warmly 
attached, at Twickenham, and helping to found 
the Martinus Scriblerus Club, organized for the 
express purpose of waging war against stupidity. 
It certainly did good service toward its end, for it is 
connected, not only with Pope's 44 Dunciad," but with 



346 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



" Travels 
of Lemuel 
Gulliver," 
1726. 



" Direc- 
tions to 
Servants," 
written 
before 
1738, pub- 
lished, 
1745. 
" Polite 
Conversa- 
tion," 
1745. 

Verse. 



another great book, which was pretty certainly sug- 
gested by its meetings. This was Swift's masterpiece, 
" Gulliver's Travels." The book, as every one knows, 
is a story about the imaginary journeyings of one 
Lemuel Gulliver. It is one of the saddest satires on 
human life ever written, and it has had the curious 
fate of becoming a classic for children. This is due 
to the fertility of its invention, and to the sober 
realism, suffused with a delightful sense of fun, 
with which the life of the tiny people and the big 
people and the nation of horses are described to us. 
But if we think closely, we shall see how sad the 
book is. There is no illusion about it, there is little 
imagination, properly speaking. Swift looks first 
through the little, then through the big, end of a 
telescope, but the instrument points straight all the 
time at the world he knew, and it is not an attractive 
world. " Gulliver's Travels " has been compared 
with More's "Utopia"; we may also put it beside the 
great allegories of human life in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, the " Faerie Queene " and the 
"Pilgrim's Progress." Any one who cares to pursue 
these comparisons will feel the difference between 
the vision of the idealist and of the realist. 

Other clever things Swift wrote, notably certain 
social satires sparkling with wit. He was also skil- 
ful in writing light, bright, society verse. We enjoy 
Swift's easy octosyllables, and the relief they afford 
from the all but unbroken run of the heroic couplet. 
On the whole, however, we must accept Dryden's 
dictum. Swift is no poet ; it is enough for him to 
be our greatest English satirist. His melancholy 
spirit, so clear-sighted in one way, so blind in 



PROSE OF THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE 347 



another, belongs rather to the family of Rabelais 
than to any English group. 

Swift's mind gave way at last, and during the Death, 
closing years of his life his condition was tragic. He 
died in 1745 at his home in Dublin. 

The nearer one presses to Swift, the more interest- 
ing he becomes. There was a fund of tenderness 
hidden under his savage ways. He was a man 
whom women loved, often passionately, sometimes 
to their great sorrow. He seemed to have loved one 
only : Esther Johnson, whom he had known from 
her childhood, and whom he has made the world 
know under the name of Stella. She lived near 
him in Ireland; and when Swift was in London, he 
wrote her a journal, in a " little language " of endear- 
ing playfulness, which remains a singularly touching 
and intimate thing. Perhaps he married Miss John- 
son ; we cannot tell : there is a mystery here. At 
all events, it seems to have been her death that has- 
tened his last, long, painful illness. 

In person, Swift was " a tall, powerful man, with a 
rather dull face, illuminated by very singular and 
flashing blue eyes." One shrinks from the great 
Dean a little; but one gives him admiration, and 
deep compassion. 



III. Daniel Defoe 

In some ways the contemporary writer with whom 1661-1731. 
Swift had the strongest affinity was Daniel Defoe, 

who was six vears his senior. Defoe wrote " Robin- "Robinson 

J Crusoe, 

son Crusoe," and this immortal work, like " Gulliver's 1719, 1720. 
Travels," derives its charm from its knack at con- 



348 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



vincing us that the impossible is the most natural 
thing in the world. This is what the realistic art 
of the eighteenth century can accomplish. Defoe 
wrote other books, and was also one of the pioneers 
of modern journalism. But he did not belong to 
the accredited literary circles of his day. If the 
truth must be told, he was a time-server and a 
tramp ; but he knew a good many things about 
human nature, and there was sweetness and whole- 
someness somewhere in him, or he could not have 
written "Robinson Crusoe." It is a little remark- 
able that the book, as well as all his other books 
of value, was written when he was well on in years, 
over fifty years old. 



IV. Addison and Steele 

Addison and Steele are the leading essayists of the 
eighteenth century. We do not shrink from them 
as from Swift, but neither do they give us the same 
impression of greatness. We know them well, as we 
know all these men, in a pleasant, familiar, modern 
way. We grow fond of Irish, extravagant, right- 
feeling, wrongdoing Steele ; as our temperaments 
may decide, we are attached to his kindly, reason- 
able friend, or just a little bored by him. 
Sir Rich- It will be noted that all these prose writers were a 
1671-1729 6 ' good deal older than Pope, though the precocious 
little poet got into the life of letters almost as soon 
as they did. Addison and Steele were boys together 
at the Charter House School in London ; and their 
best work in after life was done together. But their 
careers were very different. Steele was always in 



PROSE OF THE AGE OF QUE EX ANNE 349 



debt, always in scrapes. He left the University 
without a degree, to tnrn soldier : he wrote a reli- 
gious book called " The Christian Hero," to which "The 
he plaintively remarked that he found it hard to Hero," 
live up ; he wrote also a number of forgotten dramas. 1,0L 
He married for love, he was warmly and loyally 
devoted to his friends, he was a blundering, lova- 
ble man of genius. Addison, on the other hand, Joseph 
went through life with sweet, unimpeachable grav- 1672-1719. 
ity and correctness. "A parson in a tye-wig," 
a friend called him. He was always decorous, 
amiable, cultured, dignified, usually most kind and 
generous. He had good principles which he felt 
no temptation to deny, and tastes which were a 
credit to him. He was of an academic turn of mind 
and type of person. He wrote as a young man well- 
turned verse in the fashion of the day, some of which 
made a political hit and secured him a pension ; he 
also wrote a tragedv, " Cato," which showed little "Cato," 

i P ^ . t t nn acted 1713. 

except that the age of Queen Anne did well not to 
attempt drama. But Addison might never have 
been a great name in English letters had it not been 
for an enterprise into which Steele drew him. 

This was the Periodical Essay. Everything was The peri- 
ready for it. All London, we may almost say, was essay, 
waiting for the appearance of a new literary form. 
Nearly two thousand coffee-houses were sharpening 
the wits of the men, promoting clever talk and eager 
interest in all the topics of the day. The rise of 
women in social importance, on the other hand, was 
creating a clamorous demand for the introduction of 
the social graces into the intellectual life. Society 
was limited enough to share most of its interests in 



350 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



The 
Tatler 
April 12, 
1709, to 
Jan. 2, 
1711. 



The 

Spectator, 
March 1, 
1711 to 
Dec. 6, 
1712, and 
again in 
1714. 

The 

Guardian. 



common, and large enough to welcome a new medium 
of communication. To meet the needs of society, 
accordingly, — we might go further, and say to meet 
the needs of the town, — the periodical essay arose. 
It belonged, in origin and character, to what we 
describe as occasional literature ; but so charmingly 
was it handled by Addison and Steele, that their 
daily journals have become classics of the language. 

The last years of the seventeenth century had 
been feeling toward something of the kind ; Defoe 
in particular had published a political paper called 
the Review. But it was under the auspices of 
Steele, and perhaps with the inspiration of Swift, 
that the periodical first achieved high success. For 
in April, 1709, appeared the first number of the 
Tatler, a delightful miscellany on politics, literature, 
and art, which came out three times a week. Steele 
started it. Addison did not begin to write till the 
eighteenth number, and of the 271 numbers which 
appeared in all, Steele wrote 188 to Addison's 36. 
Before long, the Tatler was abandoned, and was 
followed by its famous successor the Spectator, which 
appeared daily. Addison wrote rather more, Steele 
rather less, than half the Spectator, and there were 
other contributors, among them Pope, whose " Mes- 
siah " appeared as one of these daily numbers. The 
Guardian succeeded the Spectator, but did not have 
the same success. 

Perhaps Steele was a little more inventive than 
Addison. Not only was the whole scheme his, but 
he also was the first creator of the immortal Sir 
Roger de Coverley, the character who did so much 
to make the Spectator famous. But it is Addison of 



PROSE OF THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE 351 



whom people in general think when the Spectator 
is mentioned, and not unjustly, for his powers were 
both more versatile and better sustained than 
Steele's. The mind and character of Addison are a 
perfect expression of the best ideals of the age. 

Grace, urbanity, timeliness, marked the daily 
essays that made up the Spectator. Now the editors Charac- 

tcristios 

would treat their audience to a bit of character 
drawing, gently humorous though never unkind, as 
in the delightful series on Sir Roger de Coverley ; 
now there would be a discussion of Italian opera, 
new in those days, as Wagner was not so very long 
ago. Now a coquette's heart would be dissected, 
or a lady's library described with delicate raillery ; 
it is surprising how large a proportion of the Spec- 
tator is addressed to the fair sex. Now, discreetly 
introduced, we find admirable moral reflections, or 
it may be a paper of literary criticism, commending 
with moderation " Paradise Lost," or half -apolo- 
getically confessing to a weakness for old English 
ballads. No one can fail to be pleased with the 
cheerful good humor, the sweet reasonableness, the 
agreeable style, of the whole Spectator. Addison's 
aim was distinctly that of a censor of manners and 
morals. "To enliven morality with wit, and to 
temper wit with morality," he announced as his 
plan. He certainly succeeded, and this tempered 
union continued for several generations to satisfy 
English instincts. 

It was distinctly a morality for polite society. Ethics of 
No cries from Swift's miserable Irish penetrated its spectator. 
charmed circle. The frivolous occupations of the 
town and the lightness of its manners won at times 



352 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



a gentle rebuke from its self-appointed critic ; but 
he offered it few suggestions of higher interests 
or larger desires. The times were complacent 
and self-satisfied, assured of their own finality, 
pursued by no haunting sense of a future different 
from themselves toward which they might press. 
" It is impossible," wrote Addison, " for us who live 
in the latter ages of the world to make observations 
in Wit, Morality, or any Art or Science, which have 
not been touched upon by others. We have little 
left us but to represent the common Sense of Man- 
kind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncom- 
mon Lights." 1 What would Addison have thought 
had he been confronted with the poetry of Shelley ? 

The other writers of the period we have no time 
to discuss, though Shaftesbury, Arbuthnot, and 
others are interesting minor figures. The great 
Berkeley, the idealist philosopher of a matter-of-fact 
age, lies in any case outside our scope. We have 
already illustrated all the characteristic phases of 
Augustan literature as the literature of this age is 
sometimes called. Its strength lay in its rational 
delineation of the life around it, and this delineation 
was always tinged with satire. Sometimes the satire 
had a spiteful, personal animus, as in Pope ; some- 
times it was courteous and cheerful, glancing at 
manners rather than at passion, as in Addison. In 
Swift it took a wider sweep, assumed a fiercer cast, 
and allied itself less to jest than to tragedy. But 
satire, in one form or another, is rarely far away in 
the age of Queen Anne. Its prevalence points to the 
one essential, fundamental fact, in the attitude of 

1 Addison on "The Essay on Criticism," Spectator, No. 253. 



PROSE OF THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE 353 



this period ; this is the fact that the Understanding 
has supplanted the Imagination as the governing 
principle in life. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Ashton, Social Life in the Age of Queen Anne. 

Thackeray's Henry Esmond gives the best picture of the 
age of Queen Anne taken as a whole which we possess. See, 
also, Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 
Vol. I, Ch. IV, and Sydney's England in the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury. H. Williams, English Letters and Letter-writing in the 
Eighteenth Century. 

Addison, see Courthope's Life, in English Men of Letters ; 
Mac aul ay's Essays. Swift, Selections by Stanley Lane 
Poole ; Life, by Leslie Stephen ; Thackeray, English Hu- 
morists ; Scudder, Social Ideals in English Letters, Ch. III. 
Steele, Life, by Austin Dobson; Thackeray, English 
Humourists. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS- WORK 

A picture of the social and literary life of the age of Queen 
Anne is one of the great things to be aimed at. To this end no 
means is so good as copious reading from the Spectator. The 
range of manners and morals should be carefully noted by in- 
ductive work, never simpler than here. Country life, as shown 
in the Sir Roger papers ; town life, of the clubs, of the drawing- 
rooms, of the home ; the interests of women ; the daily life of 
an average citizen ; — all these can be studied in this first 
literature of absolute realism. 

It is instructive to turn from the graceful society studies of 
the Spectator to Swift's picture of the state of Ireland. But if 
this seems too cruel a transition, " Gulliver's Travels " shows 
the general, deliberate estimate of civilization, formed by the 
strongest, though not the sanest, intellect of the time. The 
book should be read, not only for its marvellous art, but for 
the intellectual concept behind it, and should be put beside the 
social pictures of an imaginary society found in earlier and 
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CHAPTER V 



THE RISE OF THE NOVEL 

EVEN while Addison was saying that nothing 
new was ever to be expected in literature, an 
entirely new thing of much importance was on its 
way. The middle years of the eighteenth century 
witnessed the rise of the novel. Already, as Addi- 
son's own work shows us, literature was trem- 
bling toward it. The romantic narratives of Defoe 
and Swift gained their power from their realism of 
detail ; writing like the Sir Roger de Coverley pa- 
pers, and, still more, the little airy, sparkling sketches 
of episodes in social life, and the short, sentimental 
tales frequent in the Spectator, pointed yet more 
plainly to real modern novels. 

I. Samuel Richardson 



In 1740, accordingly, the first actual novel ap- 1689-1761. 
peared. Its name was 44 Pamela " ; its author, Sam- 
uel Richardson, a stout, sentimental little printer, 
fifty years old. 

The occasion of " Pamela " was curiously acci- " Pamela, 
dental for a book that was to inaugurate so vast a virtue Re- 
literary development as modern fiction. People at ^4o ded '" 
that time cared a great deal for good letter-writing ; 
indeed, no age has ever produced so many witty, 
delightful letters as the eighteenth century. But 

357 



358 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



" Clarissa 
Harlowe," 
1748. 

"Sir 
Charles 
Grandi- 
son," 1753. 



not every one who wanted to write letters properly 
knew how to do so, and there grew up a demand for 
the sort of books of direction and example that used 
to be called " The Polite Letter- writer." Now the 
printer Richardson loved to write letters, and he had 
so pleasant and facile a flow of language that young 
women used to get him to compose their love letters 
for them. A certain bookseller got wind of this gift 
of Richardson's, and invited him to write for publica- 
tion a set of model letters. Richardson was pleased 
to accept ; he began the series ; they were to be from 
a young servant girl to her parents in the country. 
He named her Pamela, and as he went on he thought 
that it would be a good plan to connect the letters 
so that they should tell a story. He wrote on and 
on, and by and by a complete novel was before him, 
and Pamela had married her master ! 

Over the adventures of this young woman the town 
went wild. Richardson, having discovered his power, 
was not slow in following this book with others ; 
"Clarissa Harlowe," and "Sir Charles Grandison." 
These are all the books he wrote, but they are enough. 
They are immensely long, and they are all written 
in series of letters, which everybody in the book 
writes on the slightest provocation to everybody 
else. The characters must have spent so much time 
in letter-writing that we hardly see how there was any 
time left for the things they write about to happen. 

But though it is easy to laugh at these queer old 
books, they have a power of their own. As a picture 
of the social life of the eighteenth century, nothing 
equals them. Romances enough had been written 
before. In the seventeenth century volumes of inter- 



THE RISE OF THE NOVEL 



359 



minable adventure, heroic and amatory, were in 
vogue. Pope laughs at them when he tells us how 
the Baron had built an altar to Love in his room, 
" Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt. " But 
these romances were of a wholly different type from 
the minute description of contemporary manners and 
dissection of contemporary feelings in the books of 
Richardson. 

" Clarissa Harlowe " is the best of these books. 
It tells of the long persecution to which a young 
girl is subjected at the hands of the villain Lovelace, 
of her protracted sufferings and exceedingly delib- 
erate dying. The pathos is prolix and self-conscious, 
and as we watch Clarissa designing the device for her 
own tombstone, we are seized with an impatient recol- 
lection of Ophelia in her simplicity and Desdemona in 
her reticence ; but though Richardson's pathos is not 
Shakespeare's, the only people who deny its heart- 
breaking reality are those who have never read the 
book through. The close descriptions, moreover, of 
family life, and the intricate, subtle, painstaking 
analysis of character, give the book enduring value. 
We do not wonder that Rousseau, across the ocean, 
drew inspiration from it for his own greater work, the 
"Nouvelle Heloise." As for "Sir Charles Grandi- 
son," the book has less real value, but it remains a 
joy forever to those who relish it at all. Richardson 
wrote it to show what he thought a perfect man 
should be. Spenser had done a similar thing in the 
sixteenth century, but it is a far cry from the " Fae- 
rie Queene " to "Sir Charles Grandison." For Sir 
Charles is a terrible prig : " He is great," says the 
French critic Taine ; " he is generous, delicate, pious, 



360 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



irreproachable ; he has never done a mean action 
nor made a wrong gesture. His conscience and his 
wig are unsullied. Let us canonise him and stuff 
him with straw." We have seen something of the 
ideal heroes of the English race, from the old days 
of Beowulf through those of the noble knights of 
romance to Sir Philip Sidney. It is a significant 
fact that Sir Charles Grandison is the ideal hero of 
the eighteenth century. 



II. Henry Fielding 



1707-1754. 



"The 
Adven- 
tures of 
Joseph 
Andrews,' 
1742. 



The imagination of the times produced another 
hero, not ideal ; his name was Tom Jones. Even the 
public which welcomed the novels of Richardson so 
gladly, laughed at the primness of Sir Charles. The 
person who laughed most effectively was Richard- 
son's rival novelist, Henry Fielding. Fielding was 
one of the Bohemian men of letters who were 
becoming common at this time ; he had written a 
good deal of more or less acceptable occasional 
literature, and some rather poor dramas. But 
amusement at " Pamela " and desire to parody it 
inspired him to write his first really great novel, 
"Joseph Andrews." The book was intended to 
show the adventures of Pamela's brother Joseph, as 
great a prig of a boy as Pamela was a prig of a girl. 
The caricature was forgotten before the book had 
progressed far, however, in Fielding's delight at the 
pure, racy, independent comedy that grew under his 
hand. Parson Adams, one of the characters of this 
book, is as immortal as Falstaff. Having begun to 
write fiction, Fielding liked it well enough to go on. 



THE RISE OF THE NOVEL 



361 



He was thirty-five years old when " The Adventures 
of Joseph Andrews " was published ; in the follow- 
ing year he followed it by a book, possibly however 
written earlier, 44 Jonathan Wild the Great " ; in 1749 "Jonathan 
appeared the greatest of Fielding's books and one of Great," 
the greatest of all English novels, " Tom Jones," and 1743 ' 
in 1751, already in failing health but with genius tory of 
undiminished, though tending to a graver and more Jo^" 
pathetic art, his last story, "Amelia." Fielding died im 
at Lisbon, whither he had gone in search of health, i75i? elia ' 
in 1754. 

Richardson was a sentimentalist ; he shows us what 
the eighteenth century liked to consider itself : 
Fielding was a realist ; he shows us what the 
eighteenth century probably was. The prevalent 
coarseness of manner, the prominence of animal 
instincts, and at the same time the honesty and 
hearty good-temper that marked the nation as a 
whole, all find perfect expression in " Tom Jones." 
The book is the product of a vigorous intelligence. 
It had, what Richardson quite lacked, a strong sense 
of humor, not always of the most refined kind ; 
and, like all Fielding's books, it is written with the 
author's eye fixed straight on the objects he describes. 
The book takes us out of the drawing-room and the 
club, where so much of the literature of the century 
holds us, into the good fresh air of the road and 
among the plain people of everyday England. We 
are interested to see what these people are like, and 
we discover many good qualities in them ; neverthe- 
less, it is impossible to deny that one would have 
strong objections to living in the society which 
Fielding depicts. 



362 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



III. Other Novelists 



Tobias 
George 
Smollett, 
1721-1771. 



"The 
Adven- 
tures of 
Roderick 
Random," 
1748. 

"The 
Adven- 
tures of 
Peregrine 
Pickle," 
1751. 

"The 
Expedi- 
tion of 
Humphrey 
Clinker," 
1771. 

Laurence 

Sterne, 

1713-1768. 

"The Life 
and Opin- 
ions of 
Tristram 
Shandy," 
1759-1767. 

" Senti- 
mental 
Journey 
through 
France 
and 
Italy," 
1768. 

Later fic- 
tion of the 
eighteenth 
century. 



Into the path broken by Richardson and Fielding 
others were not slow to follow. Two other novelists 
of the central years of the century, Smollett and 
Sterne, are only less famous than these. Smollett's 
chief works were : " Roderick Random," " Peregrine 
Pickle," and, twenty years later, the last of the great 
eighteenth-century novels, born out of due time, 
"Humphrey Clinker." Smollett wrote history too ; 
and a translation of " Don Quixote " shows his liter- 
ary affinities. The type of his novels is suggested by 
the so-called Picaresque novels of Spain, stories of 
scapegrace adventure, of which the most famous is 
" Gil Bias." 

The work of Sterne is " Tristram Shandy " and 
44 The Sentimental Journey." They are wandering 
books, full of good character sketching and whimsical 
meditation on life. Sterne illustrates better than any 
other of these novelists one phase of the eighteenth 
century — an extreme, almost affected, sensibility of 
feeling. This sensibility was sometimes real and 
touching, but it was often self-conscious, and we 
cannot care for it much, except perhaps as a literary 
flavor, when we see it combined, as it is in Sterne, 
with a coarseness of moral sense. 

These novels were long, and they seem serious 
reading to a generation nourished as ours is on short 
magazine tales. But they were the lightest and 
most readable things the world had known, and 
their popularity was immense. When anything so 
delightful as the novel was discovered it was sure 
to multiply fast; and we cannot follow its prog- 



THE RISE OF THE NOVEL 



363 



ress. Yet it is strange how few really great novels 
were produced between these pioneers and Sir 
Walter Scott. All these books, except " Humphrey 
Clinker," had appeared within about twenty-five 
years. Johnson and Goldsmith, a little later, both 
made incursions into the new realm. Miss Burney, 
a maid of honor at the court of George III, carried 
on, in her " Evelina," " Cecilia," and " Camilla," the 
tradition of Richardson. Mackenzie's " Man of 
Feeling" shows him under the influence of Sterne. 
But the invigorating realism with which modern 
fiction had started on its way was not to be sustained 
without break ; and we shall soon have to note the 
extravagant absurdities of early romantic fiction. 



IV. Reasons fou the Rise of the Novel 

The accidental way in which the novel seemed to 
enter literature was only apparent. Looking deeper, 
we can see that its advent was a philosophical neces- 
sity. With the new public that read, it took the 
place that the drama had held with the old public that 
saw. For the public always needs an art form that 
shall present to it, not discussion about life, but life 
itself. The new instrument was in some ways of 
wider range than the drama. The novel reflects life 
indeed, but it also admits the element of critical 
comment which the drama excludes ; so it suits the 
modern world, which will always be criticising even 
while it is creative. Moreover, the drama can only 
present the crises of life, but a great deal determines 
life besides crises. The novel can show people alone, 
without resorting to awkward soliloquy ; it can show 



364 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



what nature means to them. Above all, the novel 
differs from the drama because of its more habitual 
interest in homely, everyday people and in homely, 
everyday doings. It is the art form of the new 
democracy, and with the rising democracy it arose. 
There are other ways, too, in which it differs from 
the drama ; these it is interesting for every one to 
think out for himself. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

W. L. Cross, Development of the English Novel, Ch. II, III. 
Sidney Lanier, The English Novel and the Principle of Its 
Development. Raleigh, the English Novel. Traill, The 
New Fiction, and Other Essays. Samuel Richardson, The 
Novel of Manners. Austin Dobson, The Life of Fielding, 
English Men of Letters. Stephen's Hours in a Library. Vol. I, 
Essay on Richardson; Vol. II, Essay on Fielding. Taine is 
very entertaining on this fiction. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

Class-discussion on the scope of the novel as compared with 
epic and drama may inaugurate the study of fiction. School 
life being limited in extent, American students cannot enjoy 
the privilege of following in detail the history of Miss Byron's 
heart or Tom Jones's wanderings. Selected scenes may be 
read, as the deathbed of Clarissa, — or a part of it, —the pro- 
posal of Sir Charles, etc. With older classes, topics like The 
Eighteenth-century Heroine, The Eighteenth-century Villain, 
The Eighteenth-century Hero, Home Life in the Eighteenth 
Century, etc., can be handled. It is salutary to carry out the 
comparison suggested in the text, and place Sir Charles beside 
the great heroes of the earlier world. An analysis of the pathos 
of Richardson and Sterne, compared with the pathos of Shake- 
speare, is good training. 



CHAPTER VI 



JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES 

I. Samuel Johnson 

TN 1738, six years before Pope died, an ungainly 1709-1784. 
J- young man from the country presented to the 
town a satirical poem called, after it, " London. " Pope 
liked the poem and tried, though in vain, to help 
Samuel Johnson, the struggling author. He could not 
know that Johnson was to become his successor, the 
literary dictator who should rule with a rod of iron 
the town he had mournfully satirized. But so it 
was. Johnson's burly figure, in the last half of the 
eighteenth century, dominates all others. The age 
of democracy and division was coming in literature 
as everywhere else : all honor to the last undisputed 
Monarch of the World of Letters ! 

Johnson's writings, if the truth must be told, 
sometimes bore us a little, but his personality inter- 
ests us immensely. Fortunately, this personality we 
know in every detail through one of the most re- 
markable biographies in the world, — his u Life," 
written by his disciple, James Boswell. Johnson 
himself did a great deal to lift biography into a dig- 
nified literary form, through his admirable " Lives 
of the Poets"; and people in the modern world have 
grown to care for it more and more as interest in 
individuals, in the happenings of every day, and in 
the intimacies of character, has become keener. But 

365 



366 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



perhaps no biography has ever so perfectly revealed 
its subject, as Boswell's "Johnson." Boswell, a 
somewhat insignificant and fatuous person, the son 
of a good Scotch family, was in a way a very small 
man ; but he had the grace to recognize and love a 
great one, and this grace enabled him to write an 
immortal book. 

Personal J ohnson was very ill with scrofula when he was a 
child ; and perhaps he was one of the last children in 
England to be taken by his mother to be touched for 
" the king's evil," as this disease was then called. But 
the touch of Queen Anne did not cure him, and all 
his life was affected by the illness. From one eye he 
could not see at all ; his face was scarred, as well as 
plain and heavy. He had a great clumsy body which 
he rolled awkwardly about, he was untidy in his dress 
and his wigs, and he very much liked a large din- 
ner. His curious impulses and tricks bewildered his 
friends. " I have not had a roll for a long time," 
said the great lexicographer one day, when standing 
on the tip of a little hill ; and he deliberately placed 
his large body on the ground, and rolled over, and 
over, and over, to the bottom. His manners were 
uncouth. " You may observe," he said to Boswell, 
" that I am well-bred to a degree of needless scrupu- 
losity," but few people would have agreed with him. 
He had a terrible way of snubbing people, and a sav- 
age veracity. Moreover, he was often unjust, wholly 
devoid of tact and of the arts and graces that make 
life pleasant. Yet despite his eccentricities, few 
men have been more loved than Johnson, and few 
have deserved it better. He had the most forceful 
mind of his generation, he had also a large and tender 
heart and a devout religious spirit. 



JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES 



367 



Johnson's early life, like that of most literary men Early life, 
of the day, was filled with struggles and poverty. 
Somehow, it is not quite clear how, he got to Ox- 
ford; but he left the University without a degree. 
A little later, " having," as Mr. Leslie Stephen re- 
marks, " no money and no prospects, Johnson natu- 
rally married." His wife, the " dear Tetty " of his 
constant affections, was twenty-one years older than 
himself, very fat, and far from attractive to other 
people ; J ohnson, however, loved her deeply, and 
mourned her intensely during the thirty years that 
he survived her. Writing of her death many years 
afterward, he said : " I have ever since seemed to 
myself broken off from mankind ; . . . a gloomy 
gazer on a world to which I have little relation." 

Meanwhile, having tried in vain to support him- Johnson in 
self by keeping school, he came to London, with, as i7°37 don ' 
he afterward declared, two pence halfpenny in his 
pocket, to seek his fortune. A pupil of his, David 
Garrick, later the famous actor, was with him ; and 
a hard time the two had of it. Literature was not condi- 17 
yet, properly speaking, a profession ; Johnson him- 
self was to do more than any one man to lift it into 
an honorable rank. Things were even worse than 
in the days of Queen Anne, when letters had been 
comparatively popular and prosperous. So intense 
was the misery and discomfort of the poor authors 
who then and earlier lived in Grub Street, a wretched 
quarter of London, that the name of the street has 
become a sort of metaphor. The only way to suc- 
ceed was to secure the patronage of some great or 
distinguished person by dedicating a work to him, 
— a most uncertain method, to say nothing of its 



tions. 



368 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



unpleasantness. Johnson, who was of a finely inde- 
pendent temper, practically dealt this system of pat- 
ronage its death-blow, in one of the most scathing 
epistles ever written, his 44 Letter to Lord Chester- 
field," published some years later in connection with 
his Dictionary. " I thought," growled Johnson, con- 
cerning this nobleman, "that he had been a lord 
among wits ; but I find he was only a wit among 
lords." But the Dictionary at this time was un- 
dreamed of, and J ohnson struggled and suffered with 
the rest. Many years later, he burst into tears in 
speaking of the wretchedness of this time. 

"London," Somehow or other, however, by any hackwork he 
could secure, Johnson eked out a living. 44 London " 
made rather a hit and gave him something of a name 
to start with. Ten years later, his dull tragedy of 

acted n ik9. " I ren e " was acted, through the influence of Garrick, 
who had rapidly risen in his profession, and Johnson 
made quite a little money by it. In the same year 

"Vanity appeared his 44 Vanity of Human Wishes," another 

of Human rr . J 

Wishes," satirical poem, stronger and finer than 44 London. 

Both of these poems were imitated from Juvenal, 
for whose sardonic genius Johnson had much affinity. 
At about this time, he also tried his hand at periodi- 
Th cal essays after the fashion of Addison ; and the 

Rambler, Rambler and the Idler had a certain success and 
ThTldier i ncrease( l his reputation, though we find it hard to 
1758-1760. enjoy them to-day. 

ary^of °the ^ s " Dictionary of the English Language " is 

English Johnson's most important achievement. He planned 
guage," it in 1747, finished it in 1755 ; and it was a great work. 
i747, n pub- It takes a vigorous and courageous mind to plan a 
i755. d dictionary, and to put it through, as Johnson did, 



JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES 369 



practically by himself. Of course a dictionary is 
not literature, and is soon superseded; but it ren- 
ders a great service to literature, and nothing better 
illustrates the growth of sound critical instincts in 
the eighteenth century than the demand for such 
a work. 

The publication of the Dictionary gave Johnson a " Rasse- 
commanding position in the world of letters, and 
soon placed him above want. Not at once, however, 
for, in 1759, we find him writing with great rapidity 
his philosophical romance of "Rasselas," to defray 
the expenses of his mother's funeral. This became 
the most popular of his works, and one may meet 
translations of it all over the world. It describes 
the search for happiness of a certain Prince and 
Princess, and moves to a suggestion that this search 
can never be fulfilled. Says the Eastern sage, Imlac, 
" Human life is everywhere a state in which much 
is to be endured and little to be enjoyed." This 
grave conclusion is doubtless Johnson's own. 

After this time Johnson did not write much, until '^ iyes of 
in his ripe old age he produced, as prefaces to an f^ffrgj 
edition of the poets, those 44 Lives " which are really 
his best and most living works. But we cannot call 
him idle. For many years he devoted himself to a great 
neglected art, the Art of Conversation. Several other 
famous Englishmen have excelled in this art, notably 
Ben Jonson and Samuel Taylor Coleridge : but surely 
Johnson was the greatest talker of them all. When 
he wrote, his style was pompous, though solid and 
weighty ; he used a great many big words and Latin- 
ized inversions, so that a " Johnsonian style " has 
become a proverb. But when he talked, the fertility 



370 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



of his mind was amazing, and he had an alarming 
gift for going directly to the point. His understand- 
ing was singularly powerful in all regions which it 
was competent to enter, and, as we read the happily 
abundant records of his words, we feel that he was 
indeed a masterly critic of society and life. 

Johnson in It was during these years that Boswell, to our 
advantage and the regret of his "lady," attached 
himself to the footsteps of the great man ; " I have 
seen a bear led by a man," sighed Mrs. Boswell, 
"but I never before saw a man led by a bear." 
The bear, however, was the friendliest of creatures. 
Surely, never can there have been more delightful 
and memorable converse than that held at the Club 
which he frequented. There met with him nearly 
all the distinguished men of the day. Garrick, kind- 
hearted beneath all his affectations, was a member ; 
so were Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great artist, Burke 
the statesman and orator, C. J. Fox, Boswell, and 
Oliver Goldsmith. We have scant time in our hur- 
ried age for such leisurely, rich intercourse as that 
this group enjoyed ; even to think of it stimulates 
the imagination. 

Johnson's The more we study Johnson, the more we appre- 

character. . ,. . 

ciate his extraordinary vigor of mind and character. 
Toward the end of his life he suffered much, and on 
one occasion his organs of speech were paralyzed in 
the night ; this is how he described the experience 
to a friend : " I was alarmed, and prayed God that, 
however He might afflict my body, He would spare 
my understanding. This prayer, that I might try 
the integrity of my faculties, I made in Latin verse. 
The lines were not very good, but I knew them not 



JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES 371 



to be very good. I made them easily, and concluded 
myself to be unimpaired in my faculties." The man 
who could take such an experience in such a way 
had sanity of nature. There are times when noth- 
ing is more salutary to us than Johnson's sincere 
common sense. His estimates are full of discern- 
ment. "He thinks justly, but he thinks faintly," 
says Johnson of some one ; and that whole mind is 
known to us. 

Johnson disavowed all false emotion and hated sen- 
timentality. Yet never was there a tenderer heart. 
The man who would snub a literary upstart with 
incredible savageness, would, in his nocturnal ram- 
bles round London, gently tuck pennies into the fists 
of little sleeping ragamuffins, pleased to think of 
their surprise in the morning. He filled his house 
with a queer set of dependents : a blind old lady, 
a negro servant, and others, who squabbled with one 
another and grumbled at him ; and not only did he 
bear their presence with resignation, but he actually 
loved them with loyal, uncritical affection. Despite 
his gruffness, he was a warm and faithful friend. 
And we respect Johnson most of all when we learn 
that under his kindliness and his social good cheer 
there lay a profound constitutional melancholy so 
deep that it was what doctors to-day call melan- 
cholia. His ceaseless depression, borne with Chris- 
tian courage and equanimity, makes him, when 
rightly understood, a profoundly pathetic figure. 

Opinions are often rather an unimportant part 
of a personality ; but Johnson's opinions were very 
much a portion of him. He was an extreme Tory 
and a High Churchman. He liked the Stuarts, 



372 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



though in rather a whimsical fashion ; it was a 
great event to him, however, when king George sum- 
moned him to a talk. He fasted always on Good 
Friday, and observed the discipline of the Church 
with scrupulous, solemn devotion. His religion was 
intensely real to him. This is somewhat remark- 
able, for Johnson did not have the great help of an 
imagination in being religious. He was the sum- 
mary of his age at its best and highest ; he embod- 
ied both its limitations and its strength. 

II. Oliver Goldsmith 

1728-1774. Goldsmith is the one author of the age to dispute 
with Johnson the position of literary preeminence ; 
and there are many to whom the disreputable, ugly, 
soft-hearted Irishman seems a more engaging, if less 
honorable, figure than the great Doctor himself. 
Oliver Goldsmith, the son of an Irish clergyman, 
received his education at Trinity College, Dublin. 
He led a wandering life, for some years, mainly on 
the Continent ; but, in 1756, he settled in London, 
and picked up a living as he could by miscellaneous 
hackwork in literature. Like many men of letters 
at the time, he led a reckless, unconventional, pov- 
erty-stricken, but, on the whole, light-hearted sort 
of existence. He was continually in debt ; but this 
was largely because he was so generous to his friends, 
and, even when we disapprove of him the most, we 
find him distinctly lovable. He died, unmarried, in 
his forty-sixth year. 
" The Apart from the large body of his occasional and 

ier,"i764. miscellaneous work, Goldsmith produced a surpris- 



JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES 373 



ing amount of permanent value. His two serious "The 
poems, "The Traveller" and "The Deserted Vil- wake-° f 
lage," are in Pope's metre, the heroic couplet; and 1756.'" 
they were submitted to Johnson for criticism, and, "The 

Deserted 

perhaps, for revision. But they have a sincere feel- Village," 
ing and a sweetness of melody that we do not find in 177 °" 
Pope, and a simplicity of art and emotion unknown 
to Johnson. They are the last great work of the 
artificial school in poetry. " The Vicar of Wake- 
field" is a story of undying charm. It is an idyl of « The 
simple English country life, preposterous enough in ^tured 
plot, but sparkling with delicate realism in the treat- JJjg'" 
ment of character. Humor and sentiment blend «ske 
inimitably in it. In Goldsmith's two comedies, conquer/' 
" The Good-natured Man " and " She Stoops to Con- 1773 - 
quer," the cleverness of the drama of the Restora- 

. . . . Richard 

tion seems revived ; but the merry spirit is purer Brmsley 
and tenderer. With the brilliant society dramas of 175^1816. 
Sheridan, " The School for Scandal " and " The 
Rivals," they constitute the most important dra- 
matic work of the eighteenth century. Goldsmith's 
writings, as a whole, reveal a sensitive, emotional 
temperament; not assertive enough to escape the 
literary conventions around him, but strong enough 
to manifest itself even through acquiescence in these 
conventions. They have a grace, an ease, a gift of 
humor and tenderness, unknown to Johnson and 
his type of writers. Yet Johnson was the larger 
man ; and Goldsmith, like most of his contempo- 
raries, was submissive to the massive dictatorship of 
the great lexicographer. 



374 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



REFERENCE BOOKS 

Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. by Augustine Birrell. 
Temple edition, Selected Essays of Johnson, ed. by George 
Birkbeck Hill. Rasselas, ed. by George Birkbeck Hill, 
Clarendon Press. The Johnson Club papers, London, 1899, 
Carlyle's Essay on Johnson. Macaulay's Essay on John- 
son. Life of Johnson, Leslie Stephen (Acme Biography 
Series). 

Life of Goldsmith, Austin Dobson (Great Writers Series) 
bibliography at end. William Black (English Men of Letters). 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

Boswell should be read as much as time permits. It is 
instructive to read the "Lives of the Poets," especially those 
which treat of authors familiar to the class, and to discuss 
Johnson's estimates. The critical standards and methods of 
the age of prose become well understood in this way. Simple 
capping of anecdotes about the great man may seem frivolous, 
but it is worth while. 

Of course, " The Vicar of Wakefield " should be read entirely. 
It is a book to read rather than to analyze, however. 

Personal character sketches are in order at this point of our 
literary history. It is useful for the students to make them, 
and literary gossip is more enticing perhaps, and more valu- 
able here than at any previous point, because the material for 
personal knowledge of Johnson's famous contemporaries, espe- 
cially of the members of the Literary Club, is so full. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

An hour may be spent in a reproduction of an evening at 
Johnson's club. A sort of story could be made of it, with 
sketches of the distinguished people present, and little biogra- 
phies of them. 



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CHAPTER VII 



THE INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT 

I. Literature of Art 
STRANGE thing happened to the brilliant lit- 



erature of the eighteenth century ; the curse 
of stupidity fell upon it. 

There is a certain irony about this fate. The 
century had aimed before all things at polish, lucid- 
ity, sparkle. In the pursuit of these it had for- 
gotten all other matters ; and its desires had largely 
been attained. The wits of Queen Anne's day had 
brought into literature the grace of the best society. 
Every one applauded, every one thought that new 
standards of correctness and of charm had been 
established for all time. But it was not so. The 
delightful play on the surface of life which pleases 
us in the age of Queen Anne ceases before the cen- 
tury is half over. At times a little of it lingers, as 
in the witty comedies of Goldsmith and Sheridan ; 
but on the whole, the literature of the latter half of 
the century is very serious reading, and, if the truth 
must be told, often it is extremely dull. 

The truth is, that new ways of saying things can 
charm us only a short time, unless there is some- 
thing to say. When people prefer decorum to origi- 
nality, they get either frivolous or tedious ; and an 




378 



THE INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT 379 



age which aims at form alone soon exhausts itself. 
The eighteenth century was emphatically such an 
age. Propriety, respectability, prevail in the litera- 
ture produced under the Georges ; and in the pres- 
ence of this proper and respectable literature, we feel 
an irresistible desire to yawn. 

Edward Young, for instance, who was a clever Edward 
man, reclaimed an infidel in several books of rhymed ^1^795 
arguments, which he called "Night Thoughts." "Night 
Before we are half through, we feel a depraved 174T1745! 
sympathy for that unfortunate Infidel. Blair's Robert 
u The Grave " and Akenside's " Pleasures of the 1699-1746. 
Imagination" are other books of this class. It is "The 
possible to discover merits in both, particularly in 1743. 
Akenside, but no one is likely to do so unless he is Mark 
obliged to read them. As for the sermons and 1721-1770! 
didactic work, of which a large amount was pro- "Pieas- 
duced in prose during the latter part of the century, Imagina- 
only the stinging pen of the author of the " Dun- 1744* 
ciad " could do it justice. Johnson's " Vanity of 
Human Wishes " and his " Rasselas " are probably 
the best work of this kind that the age produced. 
There is real power in them, for they are the work 
of a strong mind ; but they are not enlivening 
to read. Even the men of lighter temper, with 
instincts of the pure artist in them, feel the con- 
tagion ; Goldsmith, in his most sensitive poetry, 
pauses to moralize and preach. 

II. Literature of Thought 

Charm and refreshment are as a rule far to seek in 
later eighteenth-century literature. Yet the times 
were not dead ; they did a solid, important work. 



380 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



Rise of 
history. 



David 
Hume, 
1711-1776. 

" History 
of Eng- 
land," 
1754-1762. 

Smollett's 
"A Com- 
plete His- 
tory of 
England," 
1757-1765. 

William 

Robertson, 

1721-1793. 

Edward 
Gibbon, 
1737-1794. 

"The His- 
tory of the 
Decline 
and Fall 
of the 
Roman 
Empire," 
1776-1788. 



Philoso- 
phy and 
theology. 



It was just the kind of work which one would expect 
from an age which had placed itself under the rule 
of the understanding. Art values are slight in it, 
but thought values are great; and the achieve- 
ment of the unemotional, vigorous minds of that 
day had a large share in making the nineteenth 
century what it was. We must dismiss this in- 
tellectual work, too briefly for its importance, but 
it must at least be mentioned. 

In the first place, as we run our eyes down the 
century, we notice, shortly after 1750, a very impor- 
tant appearance ; that of modern history. Within 
about twenty-five years, a significant group of histo- 
rians appears. The first is Hume, a great name 
whom every one knows ; then Smollett, the novel- 
ist, who continued Hume's " History of England " ; 
then Robertson, a Scotchman, as Hume was ; and 
finally, the greatest of all, Gibbon, whose " Decline 
and Fall of the Roman Empire " belongs strictly to 
literature proper, so magnificently is it written, so 
truly is it a product of the synthetic imagination as 
well as of the constructive intellect. 

History had of course existed in England before 
this time, but it had been chiefly in the form of con- 
temporary memoirs and chronicles. The new interest 
in actual life of the eighteenth century created and 
demanded more than this. Of course, the historians 
of that time had not the great help offered to their 
successors by modern evolutionary methods ; we are 
all the more filled with admiration for them when 
we see what substantial, and in some cases abiding, 
work they accomplished without this help. 

Even before history is fairly under way, we notice 



THE INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT 381 



a strong, significant development of philosophical 
and theological writing. Here, too, the rationalist 
methods of the age had a great though partial work 

to do. Butler's " Analogy " was published nearly Joseph 

. _ _ , & *1 _ ±1 . J Butler, 

ten years betore rope s death. b rom this time, Bishop of 

through the philosophical writings of Hume, to iS£r752. 

Paley's "Evidences," we have a number of books, "Analogy 

some among them of almost the first importance, ligion," 

dealing, from an orthodox or a radical point of 1736 ' 

view, with religious and philosophical matters. Paiey, m 

This new activity, this variety of thought, is yet 174 °- 18()o - 

more evident when we come to the next group, Evidences 

the political and economic writings of the times. £4Sty " 

Speculations of this order became especially promi- 1794 - 

nent during the closing years of the century ; we Political 

might say, after 1775. Doubtless our affairs here in nomfc 0- 

America had something to do with this quickening wntm s s - 
of thought on political lines. We meet among 
writers in this group some of the same names as 
those in the other lines, for men of vigorous thought 
pass easily from history to politics, and from meta- 
physics to social philosophy. Also, we meet some 
new names. We find, as in religious discussion, 
many shades of opinion represented. We have the 

noble conservatism of Burke, the great statesman, Edmund 

the orator supreme in eloquence, — author, apart ^799^1797. 
from his great and glowing political speeches and 
pamphlets, of the first important essay on aesthetics, 
in our literature. We have the instinct of radical 

social speculation in Adam Smith and Bentham. ^ d ?™ 

We have also the writings, of less intellectual 1723-1790. 

worth, but with more power to make intellectual £ ere ™y 

theories dynamic, of Thomas Paine. Finally, we 1748-1832. 



382 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



Thomas nave Godwin's "Political Justice," published in 

1737-1809. 1794; this may be taken as the last work of this 

William class during the century, and with Paley's "Evi- 

n56-i836 fences" concludes the period. 



III. The Trend of Thought 



Current 
conserva- 
tism. 



Latent 
radical 
tenden- 
cies, reli- 
gious and 
social. 



To discuss this large work in history, theology, 
philosophy, politics, and sociology would be out of 
our scope. But the student of letters should realize 
its importance. As we look back down the vista of the 
ages, these books, in the last half of the eighteenth 
century, stand out as an achievement. They were 
preparing the way for a revolution in art and life. 

Conservatism was the order of the day in the 
eighteenth century. The violent challenge of ex- 
isting authorities and institutions in which the 
seventeenth century had spent its force had grown 
repugnant to men. The Church became the accred- 
ited champion and guardian of the existing order, — 
a strange enough role for her to play, when one 
thinks of it. Politics had sunk largely into party 
strife for personal ends. People were all in a quiet 
frame of mind. They anticipated no grave changes, 
they had settled down into a pleasant loyalty to the 
constitutional monarchy and the Established Church. 

Reassured in this way, men began to let the intel- 
lect travel where it liked, and it travelled into strange 
regions. Safe within the pale of outward conformity, 
developed slowly an immense speculative ardor. It 
started in England as far back as the times of Hobbes 
and Locke ; it continued in the feeble but significant 
movement of the English deists during the closing 



THE INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT 383 



years of the seventeenth and the beginning of the 
eighteenth century. From England it journeyed to 
France, where two great men, Voltaire and Rousseau, 
carried it much farther toward scepticism in social 
and religious lines than sober England had done ; 
Voltaire, in particular, pursuing his inquiries wher- 
ever they led with a keen audacity at which men held 
their breath. Then, from France, it came back again 
to England ; Hume is, at least, as great a sceptic as 
Voltaire, and Godwin and Tom Paine carry the 
movement of inquiry to alarming if logical extremes 
in their social speculations. 

So, if we look below the surface, we see that this The chai- 

p i n lenge of 

most conservative 01 ages was also one 01 the most authority 
radical. Lulled by a false security, quickened by all 
the influences of a period which laid strong emphasis 
on clear and vigorous wits, men formed brand-new, 
startling theories of the state and of society. They 
challenged all authority, religious and social. It in- 
terested them to do this ; they took a hearty, placid 
enjoyment in it. Their speculation does not seem 
particularly to have affected their practical relation 
to the system around them. Voltaire, the arch- 
sceptic, built a little church at Fernex, where the 
devout peasants still revere his memory. We find 
Hume, the adversary of Christianity, and Paley, its 
defender, both advising young men of free-thinking 
tendencies to take holy orders. Pope, the Roman 
Catholic, wrote uncriticised Iris deist "Essay on Man," 
In social theory the incongruity was equally great. 
The strange thing is that, whenever any definite 
controversy arose, the conservative forces were likely 
to get the best of the argument, yet these forces 



384 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



themselves were becoming unconsciously suffused 
with the scepticism they meant to controvert. 

So it came to pass that, while the Town played 
cards and flirted, and the Wits flavored their tea 
with personal satire, and the Moralists droned, the 
Thinkers were quietly putting up a row of question 
marks on the horizon. By and by the eyes of all 
men would be uplifted to that horizon, and then 
strange things might happen. Beneath all frivolity 
and outward stagnation new forces were seething. 
As yet, they appeared in the literature of thought 
only, not in the literature of art ; but a touch of 
passion, and they would become active. Amazed 
enough would the thinkers have been could they 
have foreseen the near results of their intellectual 
freedom and their critical temper. But they could 
not foresee the nineteenth century, any more than 
the nineteenth was able to foresee the twentieth. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eigh- 
teenth Century, esp. Vol. II, Ch. IX. Huxley, Life of Hume, 
English Men of Letters. Lecky, Life of Gibbon. Morley, 
Burke. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

A little reading should be done in the extremely dull authors 
mentioned in the first of the chapter, to give the students an 
added appreciation of the literature of the awakening that is to 
follow. The extracts in Ward's " English Poets " would suffice. 
The philosophical, historical, and sociological books discussed 
in the latter part of the chapter can hardly be attempted in 
class, though selections from Hume and Gibbon in Craik's 
"English Prose" might be read, and Burke is available and 
valuable reading for young people. 



THE INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT 



385 



TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

The hasty study in the text of the intellectual forces leading 
up to the Revolution might well be supplemented by a lecture 
which should trace more fully the growth of social theories 
during the eighteenth century. Stephen's " History," as given 
above, Morley's "Burke," "Diderot," "Rousseau," Royce's 
"Spirit of Modern Philosophy," will give ample material for 
such a lecture or series of lectures. 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL 

FORCES of intellectual revolt had then been 
silently gathering all through the eighteenth 
century. But forces of emotional revolt had been 
gathering too, and by and by these two would meet. 
We trace these forces of emotional revolt through 
what is known as the "Romantic Revival." 

The classic ideal is restrictive ; it instinctively or 
deliberately adopts certain limits within which art is 
to aim at perfection. In this sense, the eighteenth 
century was really classic, for it was a restrictive 
period. The romantic ideal on the other hand is 
expansive, and in this chapter we are to trace the im- 
pulses making, even in this restrictive age, for free- 
dom, and preparing the way for that great outbreak 
of romantic feeling in which the modern world was 
born. Passion, faith, wonder, had, as we know, been 
replaced by candor and common sense ; it is their 
gradual return which we are to watch. 

I. The Return to Nature 

The first step in this process was the turning away 
from civilization to Nature. In the age of Queen 
Anne men's thoughts had centred wholly in the 
sophisticated society of the town ; the marvel and 
beauty of the natural world were quite sealed to their 

386 



THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL 



387 



eyes. Pope, in the Preface to his " Pastorals," con- 
demned Spenser's " Shepherd's Calendar " because it 
gave a separate lyric to each month ; the months 
were so much alike, said Pope, that the poet could not 
possibly find enough variety in them to inspire him. 
Things were not much better later in the century. 
We find Dr. Johnson snubbing Boswell, who had 
used some admiring adjective concerning a moun- 
tain they saw together in Scotland. " Sir," said the 
lexicographer, "it is a considerable protuberance." 
" The proper study of mankind is Man " was the pre- 
vailing sentiment, and the climax of such study was 
undoubtedly, in further words of Pope, " To catch 
the manners living as they rise." 

But just at the turn of the second quarter of the James 
century, a poet appeared who began to show people r7W^i748. 
that the country was worth looking at. His name 
was James Thomson. It is curious to note that he 
was a Scotchman, when we remember that the last 
considerable development of the poetry of Nature had 
been with the Scottish poets of the fifteenth century. 
Thomson's " Seasons " were a new departure in form, "Winter," 
for Thomson used blank verse instead of the all- * 726 ' 
prevalent heroic couplet. They were a yet greater mer," 
departure in substance, for they contained much de- < 172/ ' < 
liberate description of Nature in her different aspects. ii2S. mg ' 
Thomson's descriptions deal a great deal in enumera- " The 
tion unfused with personal passion ; he shows little including 
selective instinct for what is beautiful. He dwells a nda Umn 
more on Nature's use to man than on her beauty. Mature 11 "* 
He shares the mechanical idea of his day, which 173 °- 
regarded the universe not as a living whole, but as a 
great system or order of nicely adjusted parts, wit- 



388 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



nessing by the ingenuity of its plan to the wisdom and 
beneficence of the Creator. But if Thomson's work 
is heavy it is truly felt. He really loved the country 
and looked straight at it, and that is more than any 
other man was doing at the time. 
"Lib- Thomson was a young man, under thirty, when 

i73£i736. he wrote "The Seasons." He grew duller as he 
grew older. His long poem, " Liberty," was so 
uninteresting that even the eighteenth century and 
his personal friends found it hard reading ; and his 
" Tragedies," of which he wrote several, were also 
poor. But in 1748 appeared a poem, written fifteen 
years earlier, which showed even more genius than 
" The " The Seasons." This was an imitation of Spenser, 
indo- 6 ° f called " The Castle of Indolence," a dreamy, roman- 
1748?'" ^ic, allegorical narrative full of charm. It has lines 
like these : — 

" A wood 

Of blackening pines, ay waving to and fro, 

Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood," — 

lines which sound like a fragment of Tennyson, 
wandering forlorn in the age of Johnson. 



II. Quickening of the Imagination 

In the second quarter of the century, the new 
forces found more varied and significant ex- 
ponents than Thomson, in William Collins and 
Thomas Gray. The impulse of Thomson was 
toward observation and reflection ; the impulse of 
these two greater poets was purely imaginative. 
They were lyric poets in an age of prose and sing- 
song; and while the seesaw of the heroic couplet 



THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL 



389 



went on, melodies of intricate and studied 
loveliness formed on their lips. They were men of 
a feeling for Greece finer and more sincere than 
that of the other writers of their day, yet they 
were both driven by an imperious inward stress to 
dwell upon the wild, remote, and " gothick " dreams 
of the visionary ancestors of their race. They wrote 
classic odes, therefore, with exquisite instinct for 
lucidity and precision of form, but we find Collins 
producing also an "Ode on the Superstitions of the 
West Highlands," full of the thrill of mystery which 
the taste of his day so disliked ; and Gray turned, in 
his later years, with the ardor of a mystic to the 
grim unknown mythology of the North. . The whole 
achievement of Collins and Gray, slight as it is in 
bulk, is full of contending influences, and it has, 
therefore, a psychological interest which we do not 
often find in eighteenth-century verse. 

One is sorry for both these men. One feels that William 
the air of the eighteenth century stifled them ; and 1721-1759. 
indeed the very smallness of their product would 
imply that their powers were choked at the source. 
Collins wrote even less than Gray, and his life was 
tragic. He was educated at Oxford, and printed a 
little volume of " Persian Eclogues," when he was 
still an undergraduate; when he was twenty-five 
years old, appeared a tiny pamphlet, every poem of 
which, had the public only known, was of pure gold. 
Here is the famous "Ode to Evening," and "The 
Passions," and the exquisite lyric, " How sleep the 
brave who sink to rest." The book, at the time, 
failed to sell, and Collins destroyed the edition. He 
was to give the world little more. His feeling for 



390 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



Thomson found expression in some charming elegiac 
verses ; in 1749 the great " Ode on the Superstitions 
of the Highlands " was written. But terrible melan- 
choly, which travel proved hopeless to dispel, was 
gaining on Collins ; in 1751 he became hopelessly 
insane, and his death found him almost forgotten 
even by his friends. 
Thomas It is a sad story, yet hardly sadder than the more 
ini-mi. quiet story of the life of Gray. For Gray spent 
over thirty years of his life in shrinking seclusion 
at Cambridge, a prey to depression, which, if milder 
than that of Collins,, yet cast a dim shadow over 
his days. He was a man of a tender and sensi- 
tive nature, devoted to his mother and his aunt, 
ardent if at times exacting in friendship, and one 
of the most modern men in the whole temper of his 
mind that the eighteenth century shows. " He never 
spoke out," says Matthew Arnold. Gray's product is, 
if we except Collins's, the smallest from any English 
poet of the first quality, or even of the second, and 
a poet of at least the second quality we must recog- 
nize in the writer of an " Elegy in a Country Church- 
yard." He is probably the most important poetic 
figure in our literature between Pope and Words- 
worth. 

Gray received his education at Eton and Cam- 
bridge. He formed a friendship with Horace Wal- 
pole, a dilettante man of letters of the day, and a 
good-hearted, if rather frivolous, person. With 
Walpole he spent three years travelling in France 
and Italy, at the end of which time he quarrelled, 
though only temporarily, with his friend, and re- 
turned to settle down at Cambridge for the rest of 



THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL 391 



his life. Gray is the most purely academic of all our 
great poets, and his natural nicety of ear was fostered 
by strict classic studies. He wrote while still young 
a few short lyrics, which he called odes, poems full 
of delicate art, but somewhat frigid and conventional. 
In 1750, he finished the "Elegy," begun eight years "Elegy in 
before. Another lapse of years, marked only by church- try 
trifles, and we find him producing two Pindaric odes {^if 
which are probably the noblest poems of this precise 
class in the language, " The Progress of Poesy " and 
44 The Bard. " The splendid harmonies of these poems 
doubtless prepared the way for the lyrics of Coleridge 
and Shelley. Still a few years, and Gray had become 
possessed with the ancient poetry of the North, par- 
ticularly of Iceland, and was versifying poems from 
the 44 Edda," with the same sort of enthusiasm that 
William Morris has shown in our own day. Though 
study without genius could never have produced 
Gray's poems, genius without study would have been 
equally incapable. This is just as true of the 
44 Elegy," despite its careful simplicity in style and 
theme, as of the poems upon the more scholastic sub- 
jects. All Gray's poetry is exquisitely wrought in 
detail; in tone it is subdued, although at times very 
lofty. It has a truly classic sense for style, and a 
truly romantic choice of subject. 

Gray's Letters and Journal are as charming as his 
poetry, and show even more clearly how susceptible 
he was to the new, delicate feeling for Nature. Some 
of the descriptive phrases in his letters are worthy of 
Shelley. Gray's whole work is prophetic of what is 
to be ; but it is more than prophecy, it is a trium- 
phant, if limited, achievement. 



392 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



III. Literaey Revivals 



William 
Shen- 
stone's 
"The 
School- 
mistress," 
1737, 1742. 

James 
Beattie's 
"The 
Minstrel," 
1771, 1774. 

Ballads. 

Thomas 

Percy, 

Bishop of 

Dromore, 

1728-1811. 

" Reliques 

of Ancient 

English 

Poetry," 

1765. 

Thomas 
Chatter- 
ton, 1752- 
1780. 



The third quarter of the century was barren of 
any new creative work ; but as it went on, a reviv- 
ing tide of life from the romantic past began to creep 
over the arid minds of the day. There were three 
currents in it. The first showed in the numerous 
imitations of Spenser. " The Castle of Indolence " 
bore witness, in quite another way than that we have 
noted, to the indestructibility of the romantic tradi- 
tion, for it was written in the Spenserian stanza, and 
in direct imitation of Spenser. This reversion to 
the prince of romance means a great deal. For half 
a century Waller, Denham, and Cowley had been the 
poetic authorities most constantly cited ; now, the 
spell of Faerie Land began to assert itself once more. 
Shenstone's " Schoolmistress " was another imitation, 
and later in the century, in 1771, Beattie's " Min- 
strel" gave in Spenser's stanza a touching picture of 
the life of a young poet. There were other less im- 
portant poems of the same class. 

The second current flowed from the enthusiasm for 
old English ballads. Addison had liked ballads and 
defended them, but against the taste of his time. 
Now, in 1765, the publication of a volume of " Re- 
liques of Ancient English Poetry," a collection made 
by Bishop Percy, fairly brought the ballads back' into 
popular favor. The most interesting consequence to 
follow at once in the world of letters was the work of 
Thomas Chatterton, a boy of genius, who tried to 
palm off his own productions on the public as the 
work of a mediaeval monk named Rowley. Chatter- 
ton committed suicide when only seventeen years old, 



THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL 



393 



and later poets have never ceased to lament the fate 
of " The sleepless soul that perished in his pride," as 
Wordsworth called him. 

Still more searching and pervading at this time 
was another influence, the strangest that could pos- 
sibly be conceived as invading the eighteenth cen- 
tury. It was that of the wild old Celtic epic of 
Finn and Ossian. In 1T60, and again in 1762 and Ossianic 
1763, a Scotch schoolmaster, James Macpherson, as- revivaL 
tonished the world with what he claimed to be trans- Macpher- 
lations from the ancient Ossianic poems. They were i796. 1738 ~ 
a new flavor to the jaded appetites of the day, and 
they gained notoriety at once. Soon the genuine- 
ness of the poems was called in question, and people 
in England and Europe came almost to blows over 
the question. The whole story of Macpherson's Macpher- 
" Ossian " is one of the most romantic episodes of ^ossian," 
literary history. Of course, we know to-day that 1762 ' 
he did not invent the whole thing ; that there was, 
both in Scotland and Ireland, a cycle of poems about 
Finn and Ossian of which he doubtless possessed 
some knowledge. But we know also that the primi- 
tive old epic motifs look strangely when translated 
into the bombastic, misty, sentimental language which 
Macpherson adopted, and that his version, if version 
it may be called, is a curious hybrid thing, which has 
little value for us now that we have so many original 
documents in our hands. Even diluted, however, 
the Celtic magic proved immensely powerful in help- 
ing to transform the mood and taste of the eigh- 
teenth century, in Europe as well as in England. 

The vogue of Spenserian imitations, of old ballads, 
and of Macpherson's " Ossian " were by no means the 



394 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



The 

Gothic 

revival. 

Horace 
Walpole, 
Earl of 
Orford, 
1717-1797. 

"The 
Castle of 
Otranto," 
1764. 



only symptoms that a new spirit was stirring. Gray's 
friend Horace Walpole, built himself a country house 
at Strawberry Hill where all the bizarre absurdities 
of a half-understood imitation Gothic held merry riot. 
He also bequeathed a more enduring monument of 
the change of taste, in a romance called the " Castle 
of Otranto," which he presented in 1764 to the be- 
wildered world. This extraordinary little book, which 
reads like a burlesque on a mediaeval novel of Scott's, 
valiantly set at defiance the virile tradition of realism 
in fiction which Fielding and Smollett had by this time 
established. Its aim was the improbable, its delight 
the preposterous ; and mammoth helmets, clanging 
armor, and ghostly voices made up a sort of chari- 
vari of pleasing and wholly unmotived horrors. 
The type proved popular, and was followed after a 
milder and slightly more rational manner by Mrs. 
Radcliffe in her " Mysteries of Udolpho " and " Chil- 
dren of the Forest," and by other authors of less 
repute. 



IV. The Methodist Movement 

We have seen how poetry was turning, for its in- 
spiration, away from the town and the present to 
Nature and the past. But another power greater 
than these was at work in England. It was the 
power of spiritual passion, bringing with it the love 
for men. Strangely blind as educated England 
seemed in these days to all but worldly issues, the 
English race is profoundly religious at heart, and in 
the most sterile times of her experience the Spirit 
has never been without witnesses. Such a witness 



THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL 



395 



was William Law, whose " Serious Call to a Devout William 
and Holy Life," published in 1729, was a strange i76i' 1668 ~ 
outburst of earnest feeling in a frivolous age. But "Serious 
a profound spiritual movement sprang up soon after Devout a 
Law's day, and ran its great course apart from the Life^° ly 
keen wits and the Established Church of the time. im 
While the deists and their clever orthodox oppo- 
nents combined to prepare the way for modern scep- 
ticism, the Methodist movement, led by the Wesleys, John 
was keeping Christianity warm and living at the 1703-1791. 
nation's heart. Charles 

Methodism did not have at once much visible in- no£i788. 
fluence on literature, though the fervent hymns of 
the Wesleys are among the few genuine lyrics of 
the age ; but its indirect effect in softening the 
hearts of the nation and preparing the way for the 
tender sense of brotherhood among all men cannot 
be estimated. And the last harbinger of the modern 
world among the eighteenth-century poets reflects 
in his work this spiritual movement, with its social 
correlate. William Cowper is one of the most pa- William 
thetic, endearing, and tragic figures of English let- n^isoo. 
ters. He was not a man of so much imagination as 
Gray or Collins ; his was the poetry of a sensitive 
and tender heart, and it marks the return of true, 
simple feeling into our literature. 

Cowper adds yet another to the many writers of 
the century whose lives were miserable. The num- 
ber of these unhappy men is appalling. Genius does 
not necessarily render unhappy. One is sure that 
Shakespeare, Spenser, Sidney, loved to be alive, how- 
ever deep they might at one time or another plunge 
into anguish. Nor would one dare to call Milton 



396 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



unhappy, remembering what lofty idealism sustained 
him. But neither Swift nor Collins nor Chatterton 
nor Cowper loved to be alive ; Johnson and Gray, 
though their fate was of a less tragic order, suffered 
from what would to-day be considered pathological 
melancholia; the same thing is true of various 
minor men. It is a strange comment on the craving 
for equanimity and hatred of extremes of that com- 
placent age, that its most sensitive sons were pur- 
sued by madness. 

Cowper's Cowper was a contemporary of Blake and Burns ; 

but there was enough of the pedestrian gait of the 
eighteenth century in his work to justify us in treat- 
ing him first, before we come to those winged ones. 
It was not till youth was over, and he had known an 
experience of deep agony, that he became a poet. 
The first attack of the terrible mental malady, from 
which he suffered all his life at recurring intervals, 
came upon him in 1763, as a result of his horror at 
the ordeal of an examination which he was expected 
to pass. His illness then, as ever, took the form of 
despair of the mercy of God. It was impossible 
hereafter for him to know an active life ; his friends 
arranged for him to live in the country. In little 
villages near the river Ouse, Cowper spent, from this 
time, a life of religious and domestic seclusion with 
dear friends at his side. There were many gentle, 
happy days in the intervals of his malady ; and, like 
many melancholy people, he could be a charming 
and sunshiny and humorous companion, as his lines 
on John Gilpin, and his letters about his pet hares 
and other diversions abundantly testify. 

Hymns. Cowper's first poems were certain hymns which he 



THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL 



397 



contributed to the little volume of " Olney Hymns," 
written by himself and by his pastor and spiritual 
guide, John Newton. " Oh, for a closer walk with 
God " and " God moves in a mysterious way " are 
the most familiar. Two or three years later he 
began to compose didactic and satirical pieces in 
the fashion of the day. These are not without 
merit, but they are quite thrown in the shade by his 
longer poem, " The Task." This, with a handful of 
short poems, of which the " Lines written on Receipt 
of My Mother's Picture " is the most beautiful, form 
his title to fame. 

At times "The Task" seems to us as didactic "The 
and heavy and prosy as any poem the eighteenth 1^5/ 
century produced, and we are tempted to lay it 
down in weariness. But something makes us con- 
tinue, and the longer we read the more aware we 
grow that in this wandering poem are the notes of 
a new era. 

In the first place, it is one of the first poems in 
which we have a simple, intimate self -revelation, such 
as gives charm to so much of the poetry of the nine- 
teenth century, from Wordsworth's " Prelude " to 
Tennyson's "In Memoriam." Most of the verse of 
the eighteenth century is impersonal, but Cowper 
lets us into his confidence and allows us to feel the 
personality behind the verse. 

Then, the poem is full of a feeling for Nature, far 
more tender and modern than that of Thomson. 
Cowper does not care for wild nature. He gives 
us no rushing cataracts like those loved by Words- 
worth, but the sluggish little river Ouse, near which 
he lived ; no up-leaping mountains, but wide, placid 



398 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



English fields, such as stretched around his cher- 
ished Olney ; no mystery of enchanted woodland, but 
a garden and greenhouse in which the cucumbers are, 
one feels, as great a pleasure to him as the syringas 
or the roses. We are forced to confess that he is 
utilitarian at times. But this homely, quiet Nature 
he loved and described with close fidelity, and at 
times with a true poetic touch. There are three 
great relations that man can hold : the relation to 
God, to Nature, to his fellow-men. We feel assured 
in reading " The Task " that the second of these re- 
lations is at last for the first time fully apprehended 
as a poetic subject. 

The third relation also is conceived, though faintly, 
in a new way by Cowper. His landscape has single 
figures in it, — the poor, wandering woman, the post- 
man, the thresher, — that are quite in the later man- 
ner. Moreover, his poem breathes, with its strong 
religious passion, a love for humanity and for free- 
dom wholly alien to anything to be found, let us say, 
in Pope. Even inferior creation, the animal world, 
is treated by Cowper with a loving sympathy such 
as had never been known before. There is nothing 
very vivid in " The Task " ; the fulness of life and 
beauty, so soon to be revealed in Nature and humanity, 
it was not given to Cowper to feel. All his work is 
a twilight piece, but its gentle sweetness and true 
insight endear it to us, and give it a permanent 
place in English letters. 
"Transia- Cowper attempted one more long piece of work, 
Homer " a translation of Homer. He tried to be more faith- 
1791 - ful than Pope, and succeeded ; but he did not master 
that elusive secret of Homer which has baffled all 



THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL 



399 



translators. He lived till 1800, surviving the dear 
old friend, Mrs. Unwin, with whom he had lived in 
domestic comfort for many years, and whose gradual 
decline he had watched with the tender sorrow which 
finds touching expression in the lines " To Mary." 
His last days were sorrowful, yet we need not think 
of sorrow when we think of Cowper ; we may think 
of one of the most winning, most tender, and sweetest 
natures that our literature has known. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

W. Phelps, Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement. 
Beers's English Romanticism, eighteenth century. Gosse's 
edition of the prose and verse of Gray. Editions of Gray, Col- 
lins, Cowper, in the Athenaeum Press Series, with Introductions. 
Gosse, Life of Gray. Essays on Gray, Matthew Arnold, 
Lowell. Cowper, Life, by Goldwin Smith. Introduction to 
selections in Golden Treasury Series, by Mrs. Oliphant. Life 
of Horace Walpole, by Austin Dobson. See esp. the descrip- 
tion of Strawberry Hill. Centenary edition of Ossian's Poems, 
ed. by William Sharp (Patrick Geddes, Edinburgh). Percy's 
Reliques. Stopford Brooke, Theology in the English Poets, 
has interesting treatment of Cowper. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

This is perhaps a time when the historic estimate (see Mat- 
thew Arnold, on the "Study of Poetry") is more important 
than the real estimate, for it is a period of promise and transi- 
tion, less great in itself than periods which precede and follow, 
but extremely significant in literary evolution. Readings from 
Thomson, Gray, Collins, Cowper, should be carried on with 
the aim of sensitiveness to the romantic elements in their work, 
whether new or revived. Also the respects in which their work 
conforms to the tastes and standards of their times should be 
noted. The awakening feeling for Nature should be traced. 
The influence of the Greek at first hand should be noted in 
Gray and Collins, and the advance toward full romanticism 



400 



THE AGE OF PROSE 



followed. One poem, preferably the " Elegy in a Country 
Churchyard," should be exhaustively studied, stanza by stanza, 
with notice of epithet, pause melody, sentiment, and all detail. 
Special topics may be given on Cowper's pets, on Gray's feeling 
for Nature. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

If time permits, a lecture on any one of these men individ- 
ually is full of value. The aim should be to trace in their work 
the interplay of old and new, and also to interest the students 
in their personalities. 



PART V 

MODERN ENGLAND 



CHAPTER I 



THE HERALDS: BURNS AND BLAKE 

I. The New Notes 

" Of a' the airts the wind can blaw 
I dearly like the west, 
For there the bonie lassie lives, 
The lassie I lo'e best." 

" The moon like a flower 
In Heaven's high bower 
With silent delight 
Sits and smiles on the night." 

Where do these voices come from, with their 
sweet and tender melody ? From the fourteenth 
century? No, surely. From the sixteenth? The 
answer hesitates a little, but dares not quite say 
Yes. From the seventeenth? Hesitation still. 
From the eighteenth? Probably the reply sounds 
clear, No, not from the eighteenth, not from the 
century of Pope and Johnson, of satire, reason, and 
prose. 

Yet these two poems were both written within the 
last quarter of the eighteenth century. The author 
of the first was a Scottish yeoman named Robert 
Burns ; the author of the second a poor artist of 
London, William Blake. The work conies to the 
traveller through the cheerless air of the eighteenth 

403 



404 



MODERN ENGLAND 



century with a fresh, delightful surprise. These are 
the heralds of a new order ; song-birds of the dawn, 
proclaiming the rise of a new day. 

What makes the poetry of these two men so dif- 
ferent from what had gone before ? Let us look at 
them and see. 

II. Robert Burns 

Burns's Robert Burns was born in a cottage built by his 
1759-1796. father's hands in Ayrshire, Scotland. He had little 
schooling, and was when a boy farm laborer on his 
father's farm ; poor all his life, with a poverty that 
sadly deepened toward the end. Not much need be 
said of his biography ; it is written in his poems. 
He was of an emotional temperament, — too emo- 
tional, — and few grave duties or high imaginings 
came in his way to satisfy his passions and prevent 
them from feeding on crude self-indulgence. But 
his nature was rooted firm in sincerity and honor. 
He won his first fame when he was twenty-seven 
years old by a volume of poems for which he re- 
ceived twenty pounds ; he was feted in Edinburgh, 
and the false taste of the times spoiled some of his 
verses ; but he was always simple at heart. He mar- 
ried one of his many early loves, Jean Armour, and 
settled down into the life of a farmer ; but failing to 
succeed was appointed exciseman, and moved to the 
town of Dumfries, where he died, worn out by dis- 
sipation and anxiety, in 1797. He had lived thirty- 
seven years, and dowered Scotland with immortal 
store of song. 

So we see that Burns's life was all lived within 



THE HERALDS 



405 



the limits of the eighteenth century, but apart from 
its conditions. In his work the Celt appears once 
more in our literature, bringing with him the pre- 
cious gift which he always proffers : sensitive emo- 
tion, tremulous melody, natural magic. He sings of 
the elementary realities of life, which the school of 
artifice had well-nigh forgotten. Open his poems Bums's 
and note his range of subject. Here two dogs, subfect* 
inimitably described, chat about the affairs of their 
masters; here the "wee, sleekit, tim'rous, cowerin' 
beast ie," frightened by the plough, scampers away 
with a panic in her breastie ; here we are introduced 
to the auld mare Maggie, or to Mailie, the dying 
sheep. Again, we turn with relief from Thomson's 
" polyanthus with unnumbered dyes " to a wee crim- 
son-tipped daisy. On Saturday night we watch the 
peasant family gathering after the healthy labors of 
the week for an evening of affection and rest. Or we 
find ourselves with a little shock in a less decorous 
gathering, among the Jolly Beggars in a deserted 
barn, and hear them troll out their lawless melodies. 
We see poor Tarn o' Shanter, riding post-haste on his 
old gray horse, while a rout of witches chase him in 
the Scottish twilight. Even the devil is not excluded 
from this sociable democracy of feelings; the devil of 
folk-lore, mediaeval in origin, a malicious but not 
wholly unattractive companion. 

" Prince ! Chief of many throned powers 
That led th' embattled Seraphim to war — " 

so had Milton apostrophized his melancholy, majestic 
Satan : — 



406 



MODERN ENGLAND 



" Thou ! whatever title suit thee, 
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie," 

responds Burns, with cheerful and unparalleled au- 
dacity, and ends the poem with a wistful hint of 
friendly compassion. 

Finally, we find in Burns's poems the loveliest 
lyrics since the great days of the sixteenth century. 
Little, tender, unelaborated things they are, written 
to match the old melodies of the land, and they sing 
themselves into the heart and nestle there. They 
are spontaneous in feeling as the lyrics of the Re- 
naissance, but they have a more human passion. 
Treating mostly of love, some of them yet thrill 
with patriotic ardor or with convivial pleasure, with 
defiance of the rich, it may be, or better, with a new, 
deep instinct, half realized, for freedom and brother- 
hood. 

Signifi- This poetry of Burns, in its dialect of lowland 
Burns? Scotch, is the full outpouring of the warm, super- 
poetry, stitious, homely life of the peasant people. It has 
defects enough, and grave ones, the same defects 
that stain the life of the poet. His ardent nature 
was not fed much by knowledge or by art ; he did 
not think very much, any more than the people for 
whom he sang, and the spiritual values of life were 
unknown to him. " Burns is a beast, with splendid 
gleams," wrote Matthew Arnold. But surely this 
is too harsh a verdict. What we value in Burns 
is the revelation of the worth of the primitive 
experiences common to all men, the natural passions, 
the consciousness of a life lived, not sentimentally 
but substantially close to the heart of Nature. He 



THE HERALDS 



first demonstrates that these common experiences 
are the stuff of poetry ; for he sings them in verse 
of irresistible charm. We love Burns also for the 
spirit of democracy that pervades his work. Al- 
though sometimes he strikes the note of class antago- 
nism in a painful way, now and again this spirit 
finds ringing, direct expression : — 

" The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
A man's a man for a' that." 

The sentiment is trite enough to-day, yet it still 
strikes home to our hearts, because it came so freshly 
from the heart of Burns. 

III. William Blake 

Burns brought our poetry back from artifice and 1757-1827. 
decorum to the warm and homely life of earth. 
Blake escaped from this world almost altogether 
into the free air of spiritual mysticism. Burns 
restored passion to the lyric ; Blake summoned to its 
inspiration the long-exiled imagination. "All things 
exist in the human imagination," was a strange, brief, 
pregnant saying of his. People called William Blake 
insane ; so perhaps in a sense he was ; but there are 
those who think that his madness knew more truth 
than the sanity of his age. 

Blake was a little London boy ; and his father, Blake's 
who was a hosier, gave him small education beyond ai7ty° n ~ 
reading and writing. But the child had no lack of 
experiences. Once he came home from his walk 
and told his parents that he had seen a tree full of 
angels. His father whipped him, but he would not 



408 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Poetical 

sketches, 

1783. 



" Songs of 
Inno- 
cence," 
1789. 



take it back. All his life long he was haunted by 
visions. "When the sun rises," said some one to 
him, 44 do you not see a round disk of fire something 
like a guinea ? " " Oh, no, no," he replied ; 44 1 see 
an innumerable company of the heavenly host, cry- 
ing, 4 Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty.' " 

" We are led to believe a lie 
When we see with, not through, the eye," 

he says again, and those who know what he means 
in this couplet will understand his poetry. 

It was natural that this vision-seeing boy should 
have turned to the arts that render beauty visible. 
He was fascinated by painting and by Gothic archi- 
tecture, and became himself an artist, though most 
of his work was in the unambitious branch of en- 
graving. Blake's work in art was valued more 
highly by the nineteenth century than by his con- 
temporaries. Some of it, like his illustrations for 
the Book of Job, has an imaginative power at times 
sublime. 

Most of the poems of Blake which we care for 
to-day are in two little volumes, the 44 Songs of Inno- 
cence" and the 44 Songs of Experience." He printed 
them himself, as he did nearly all his books, and they 
can still be seen at the British Museum and else- 
where. Sunset colors flush across their pages, and 
they are full of melodies, sweet as those of Burns, 
but with more elfin undertones. The 44 Songs of 
Innocence " is a book of verse about children. Chil- 
dren had not interested the eighteenth century, but 
they interested Blake. It seems as if he had caught 
and translated for us the first tremblings of con- 



THE HERALDS 



409 



sciousness in a baby's soul in some of these verses ; 
in nearly all we feel that he has given us the true 
spiritual secret in the heart of the child. What a 
journey from Gray's Pindaric odes to these little 
songs ! Yet they are not so far separated in time. 
The " Songs of Experience " correspond to the " Songs « songs of 
of Innocence," but where the first give the fair light, Jjence " 
these give the shadow. We have the tiger for the 1793 - 
lamb, we have sorrow for joy, and instead of inno- 
cence a shuddering perception of sin throbs through 
the verses. 

Blake also wrote what he called his Prophetical Prophet- 
Books, a series of extraordinary visions in strange, Books: 
rhythmical prose. These books are for the most f<j erusa 
part unintelligible to the ordinary reader, but every Jem," 
now and then a passage flashes out, of profound Marriage 
beauty or meaning. When we do not understand and Hell," 
Blake, the fault may often be ours rather than his. ' Unzen - ' 
For he was a deep and audacious thinker. He was 
filled with a passionate longing for true social free- 
dom and justice. He has no thrilling democratic 
manifesto like Burns's defiant " A man's a man for 
a' that," but a sweeping phrase of his, " Everything 
that lives is holy," proclaims with power that has 
never been excelled the central spiritual truth on Blake 
which democracy rests. The misery of the poor 
was heavy on his heart : — 

" The beggar's rags fluttering in air 
Do to rags the heavens tear," 

he exclaims. He is perhaps the first English poet to 
be filled with the social idealism that looks for the 
coming of God's kingdom on earth ; four lines of 



democ- 
racy. 



410 



MODERN ENGLAND 



his have been taken for the motto of a modern 
socialist paper : — 

" I will not cease from mental fight, 
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, 
Till we have built Jerusalem 
In England's green and pleasant land." 

Blake's Despite his speculative ardor and audacity and his 
defiance of law, Blake was a man of intense faith. 

" If the sun and moon should doubt, 
They'd immediately go out," 

he naively tells us. All things to him were charged 
with spiritual meaning ; the emblems or symbols of 
mysterious forces. To quote his own words for the 
last time, he can teach us — 

" To see a world in a grain of sand 
And a heaven in a wild flower, 
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, 
And eternity in an hour." 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

The Cambridge Burns, edited by Henley. Selections from 
Burns, Athenaeum Press Series. Life of Burns, by Shairp 
(English Men of Letters), by Blackie (Great Writers Series). 
Essays on Burns by Carlyle and Stevenson. 

Selections from Blake, edited by Wm. M. Rossetti. Selec- 
tions, Canterbury Poets. Life, by Gilchrist. Monograph, by 
Swinburne, Wm. B. Yeats, Ed., with Memoir and interpre- 
tation. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

If possible, let Burns's songs be sung to the class. Study the 
life of peasant Scotland as inferred from his poetry ; the new 
democracy, as expressed by him; the noble and ignoble ele- 
ments in his genius. Compare his lyrics with those of the six- 
teenth century ; with the poetry of Pope. 

Let the class see any of Blake's drawings that are accessible. 
The " Songs of Innocence " and the "Songs of Experience " are 
delightful to read with a class. 



CHAPTER II 



THE NEW DEMOCRACY 

I. Review of Forces making for Democracy 

rriO explain the poetry of Blake and Burns, we have 
had to use a great word which we have rarely 
needed before. It is the word "democracy." With- 
out that word we cannot go a step farther, for 
through the power of democracy nearly all the litera- 
ture of the last century was developed. 

We have glanced at the forces that all through the 
eighteenth century were making for a new order. 
The novel has shown us how people were coming to 
take as much interest in the lives of ordinary men 
and women as in those of kings and queens and 
heroes. The poetry of the romantic revival has sug- 
gested how deep was becoming the restiveness under 
restraint and convention ; and we have found, now 
and then, a sensitive person who begins to draw away 
a little critically from civilization, and to find his 
pleasure in simple life lived close to the heart of Na- 
ture. Meanwhile, the thinkers, both in France and 
England, have begun to challenge authority of all 
kinds in the Church and in the State ; and before 
the end of the century, a definite theory, daring in 
the extreme, has been put forth. It is the theory 
that all men have equal rights, to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness ; that simple manhood is in 
itself a sacred thing. As early as 1776 the Declara- 

411 



412 



MODERN ENGLAND 



tion of Independence was signed in Philadelphia, and 
the new ideal — for, trite though it seems to us 
to-day, men hailed it then as new — had entered the 
arena of action. But it still took some time for 
democratic theory to possess with full force the 
world of letters. When this happened, it re-created 
literature. 

Literature needed quickening badly enough, for 
all the old motives and inspirations seemed ex- 
hausted. The enthusiasm for perfection of form 
had, as we have seen, worn itself out ; realism was 
declining upon conventionality. The truth is, — and 
it is a truth which critics of the school of Addison 
never surmised, — literature cannot live long unless 
it is nourished by great ideals. Such ideals the 
eighteenth century could not supply, nor did it sus- 
pect that any were in reserve. 

II. The French Revolution and Literature 

Yet all the time, an ideal as great as any that the 
Christian world has ever known was silently on its 
way : the love of humanity and of freedom, and the 
belief that these shall one day transform the earth. 
That the new passion and faith were astir in people's 
hearts before any outward events wakened them is 
evident from the poetry of Blake and Burns ; for 
the genius of both these men had declared itself 
before 1789, when the fall of the Bastille in Paris 
gave the signal of a general quickening. But 
democratic ardor was stimulated and freed more 
than we can estimate by the great outbreak of the 
French Revolution. The eighteenth century ended 



THE NEW DEMOCRACY 



413 



in the most dramatic passage of history that the 
world had seen for many a hundred years. And 
out of that great drama of death and birth arose 
three noble words: "liberty, equality, fraternity." 
This is the revolutionary formula, the revolutionary 
creed. It has taken men more than a century to un- 
derstand those words, and we have not finished learn- 
ing our lesson yet. 

Poor France was too occupied by the swift and 
amazing events which followed each other through 
the last decade of the century to express in poetry 
the new forces that were shaking her to her centre. 
But the English on their island had sufficient detach- 
ment to translate experience into art. Revolutionary 
thought and passion permeate all the countries of 
Europe in the early nineteenth century, but perhaps 
there is no literature which is so wholly possessed by 
them as that of England. 

We can study the progress of the revolutionary The Revo- 
drama in a poem by one of the great English seen 11 
poets of this period: "The Prelude," by William $3'_ h 
Wordsworth. worth's 

"Pre- 

The very form of the poem is suggestive of the lude." 
new interest in the individual which democracy 
brought with it ; for it is a long autobiography in 
verse. " The Prelude " is much like Cowper's 
" Task " in some ways ; but it lets the personal 
interest, which in the " Task " slips in surreptitiously, 
frankly be the centre of the poem. Moreover, it has 
more passion and enthusiasm than the " Task " ; 
and at times it soars into a higher poetic heaven 
than the gentle muse of Cowper ever entered. It is 
a " Task " with wings. 



414 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Wordsworth opens "The Prelude" with some 
books of very great beauty, in which he describes his 
childhood among the lakes and hills of Cumberland, 
the English lake district. Then he tells us of his 
English education at the University of Cambridge : 
then how he went to France during the revolutionary 
period, a shy, mountain-bred boy ; and step by step 
he traces the effect of the great national drama of 
the Revolution on his spirit. A few glimpses of the 
Revolution through the mind of Wordsworth will 
make us understand better what was happening to 
all the men of his age. 
Early When Wordsworth first visited France, the Revo- 

tionary lution was well under way, and it was in its earliest, 

idealism. happiest gtage . _ 

" Europe at that time was thrilled with joy, 
France standing on the top of golden hours, 
And human nature seeming born again." 

For there was a brief period at the beginning when 
it really seemed as if the Goddess of Justice had 
returned to earth again as the old myth promised, 
and as if brotherly love were going to rule this old 
earth. Wordsworth, a lad of twenty at this time, 
made his way across a pleasant France, noting " how 
bright a face is worn when joy of one is joy for tens 
of millions," joining in dances of Liberty and happy 
feasts in the villages, and finding benevolence and 
blessedness spread everywhere like a fragrance. The 
whole country throbbed with an ecstatic sense of 
escape. 

" Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 
But to be young was very Heaven," 



THE NEW DEMOCRACY 



415 



sighs the poet, remembering those fair days. Indeed, 
the spirit of a mighty hope had taken possession of 
the world ; no less a hope, Wordsworth tells us, than 
to realize on earth a perfect society. The whole 
earth seemed to him at that time, he says, a new- 
fallen inheritance, all his own, which he studied 
with a delight that was glad to note even the worst 
and most unhappy things in society, because it would 
be such joy to watch them suddenly disappear. 

It was a wonderful dream : so wonderful that 
Europe has not forgotten it to this day, and there 
are some who still hold it prophetic. But in the 
world of fact it did not last. The people, long op- Eeaction: 
pressed by the nobles in France, had begun at last to o^Terro? 
realize their power ; restraints had been removed, 
and reverence for the past had been shaken. From 
a period of ideal optimism, the Revolution in France 
passed, suddenly it seemed to Europe watching 
aghast, into the wild excesses of the Reign of Terror. 
Crimes were perpetrated in the name of liberty and 
justice. The forces of destruction latent in that 
young democracy had it all their own way. It took 
Europe more than one generation to recover from 
the nervous shock of those days. Other great and 
dreadful events followed : wars devastated Europe ; 
England was hurried into the vortex; and finally, 
revolutionary France, rent, tossed, lawless, fell under 
the military despotism of the first Napoleon. The 
First Empire, with its emphasis on physical power, 
its thirst for material dominion and for glory of con- 
quest, seemed to most thoughtful people a tragic 
anticlimax after that so recent cry, liberty, equality, 
fraternity. 



416 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Wordsworth shared deeply the suffering, the 
shock, the moral disillusion of the time. Full of com- 
passion for " the abject multitude," he had believed 
that their sorrows would be ended when the absolute 
rule of a monarch should be abolished, and the peo- 
ple should have a strong hand in framing their own 
laws. But when that time came, the people proved 
unworthy of his trust ; in the fevered politics of the 
day the issue between right and wrong seemed 
obscured. A sense of horror overwhelmed him as 
he brooded over the crimes and violence of Paris; 
the city, hushed and silent at midnight, yet seemed 
to him a place defenceless as a wood where tigers 
roamed ; and his sleep was haunted by dreams of 
innocent victims in their agony. 

He used to wonder at this time — so simple did 
the matter still appear to childlike minds — if he 
himself, a youth, a foreigner, unknown and obscure, 
might not turn the tide once more to righteousness 
Disillusion if he plunged into the arena of politics. But he was 
spair de " not allowed to try his wai/plan. He returned to Eng- 
land ; and there events as they developed toward the 
Empire yet further afflicted his spirit, and he passed 
into a dejection so profound that not only his social 
idealism and his republicanism, but his faith in God 
and man, seemed swept away. 

We cannot stop to trace the process by which his 
pure, sensitive spirit recovered its sanity and its 
belief ; that belongs to his story, not to the story of 
the Revolution. Recover them he did in a measure, 
though a glory had left the earth, never to return. 
But we have been dwelling on his experience up to 
this point because it is typical. All the great poets 



THE XETV DEMOCRACY 



417 



who were his contemporaries grew up in the presence 
of the astounding drama with which the nineteenth 
century opened. In every one may be discerned the 
play of its clashing forces and contending ideals. 
The Revolution knew three phases. First, an ardent summary, 
and generous hope for the freedom of all men and the 
establishment of the perfect state on earth thrilled 
through the nation. Then came a sudden reaction, 
and the avenging wrath of the people leaped upward 
like a conflagration, destroying the old world as by 
fire. Finally came, so far as thoughtful people were 
concerned, a collapse into exhaustion and discourage- 
ment, while the early revolutionary ideals translated 
themselves into a lust for material power under the 
hand of Napoleon. All Europe watched this drama 
breathlessly, and every writer of the first third of the 
century was. according to his temperament, imbued 
with the lofty hopes, the lawless passion, or the dis- 
couragement experienced by the nation. 

III. English Poets of the Revolution 

The revolutionary poets in England fall into 
three groups, and the tone of their thought is at 
least partly determined by their relation in time to 
the historical Revolution. 

First came Blake and Burns. We have called Group i. 
them the heralds of the dawn. They did not need Burns and 
the historic Revolution to set their spirits free. They 
sympathized with it each in his way. but Blake was 
thirty-two. Burns thirty, when the Bastille fell in 
1789. Both poets were clearly formed in the pre- 
revolutionary period. 



418 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Group II. 
Words- 
worth, 
Coleridge, 
Southey. 



Group III. 
Byron, 
Shelley, 
Keats. 



There are three names in the next group: Will- 
iam Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert 
Southey. They were boys at the most sensitive age, 
from nineteen to fifteen years old, when the Bastille 
fell ; in 1804, when Bonaparte became emperor, 
Wordsworth was thirty-four, Coleridge thirty-two, 
and Southey thirty. Thus they grew to manhood 
while the great drama went on. We can imagine 
the passion of delight with which all these young 
poets would respond to the young ideals of hope 
and freedom. We can easily understand, also, how 
terrible the later phases of the Revolution would be 
to them, and how they all, with Wordsworth, would 
suffer a shock of disillusion. It is not strange if 
we find them all reacting more or less in different 
ways from the uncritical enthusiasm of their youth, 
and developing in middle life a conservative bent 
which made them seem to certain ardent spirits of 
the younger generation " lost leaders " indeed. Yet 
we should be surprised if, despite all changes in polit- 
ical views and in the temper of thought, men of poetic 
feeling who had once known the rapture and uplift of 
those great moments ever walked wholly in the light 
of common day ; and, indeed, to the last, the work 
of Wordsworth and Coleridge is visited, though with 
inconstant glance, by the spirit of an ideal faith. 1 

George Gordon Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, 
and John Keats, form the last group of poets of this 
great period. They were literally children of the 



1 Perhaps we should include in this group Scott, who was almost 
an exact contemporary of Wordsworth, being one year younger ; 
but Scott's fame as a prose writer has so eclipsed his fame as a 
poet, that it is better to reserve our study of him. 



THE NEW DEMOCRACY 



419 



Revolution : Byron was born in 1788, just before it 
broke out, Shelley and Keats during its progress, 
the first in 1792, the second in 1795. To all these 
the earlier phases of the Revolution would be not 
even a personal memory, though they lay so close 
behind in the past of the race. The environment of 
these poets was that of the Europe of the Empire. 
How differently these young heirs of the historic 
revolution were affected by the conditions around 
them we shall see as we turn to closer study of the 
marvellous development of poetry in England be- 
tween 1798 and 1830. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Dowden, Studies in Literature ; The French Revolution and 
Literature. Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, traces 
in an interesting way the relations between German philosophy 
and the revolutionary movement. Stopford Brooke, Theology 
in the English Poets : note in particular a fine analysis of " The 
Prelude." Mrs. Oliphant, Literary History of England. Han- 
cock, The French Revolution and the English Poets. " The Pre- 
lude," edited by A. J. George. Shelley's Prefaces to The 
Revolt of Islam and Prometheus Unbound show how the revo- 
lutionary movement appeared to a poet of the second generation. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

Book VI, Books IX-XI of " The Prelude," with selections 
from the later books, gives a class a vivid idea of the inner 
drama that accompanied the Revolution. Wordsworth's politi- 
cal sonnets and Coleridge's " Ode to France " may also be read. 



TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

An historical lecture would here be much in place ; also lec- 
tures on German, French, Italian literature, inspired by the 
Revolution. 



CHAPTER III 



FROM WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 

THE poetry of the eighteenth century is at best a 
"twilight-piece." Collins's " Ode to Evening," 
or the fine apostrophe to Evening in the " Task " or 
the opening of Gray's " Elegy " seem to catch its 
spirit. The great poetry of the revolutionary period 
glows with the hues of a new day. Sunrise studies, 
like the exquisite opening of the second act of Shel- 
ley's " Prometheus Unbound " or the noble passage 
in the first book of the "Excursion," come to one's 
mind when one tries to describe it. It is a poetry 
of renewed youth, of expectancy, of marvel ; the 
light that shines in it seems to discover a new earth 
and to promise a new heaven. 

I. "Lyrical Ballads," Character and 
Significance 

In 1798 a modest little volume appeared, called 
"Lyrical Ballads." Two young men were the 
authors, — William Wordsworth and Samuel Tay- 
lor Coleridge. The two had met after Words- 
worth's return from France, and the friendship of 
Coleridge had been one of the powers that restored 
Wordsworth's troubled mind to sanity and peace. 
The devotion between the two poets was deep and 
vital; out of their happy intercourse sprang this 

420 



WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 421 



little book, born from a summer wandering over 
the Quantock hills. 

The plan was that Wordsworth should write 
poems which should show the poetry in common 
things ; Coleridge was to treat strange, supernatu- 
ral subjects in such a way that they should appeal 
to the general heart. The poets kept their promise ; 
realism and romance, the two great forces that were 
to re-create modern literature, are in full play in this 
small volume. Here are short poems of peasant life 
by Wordsworth, pure as dewdrops ; they reveal the 
secrets of those little ones of the earth whom the 
world had long despised. Here is a ballad-poem by 
Coleridge, the 44 Ancient Mariner " ; it takes us over 
perilous seas in fearsome company, thrilling us with 
images of horror and supernatural beauty, and we 
feel that the romantic impulse, dim though present 
in Gray and Collins, has conquered at last. Here, 
finally, Wordsworth's great poem, the 44 Lines written 
above Tintern Abbey," lifts the feeling for Nature, 
seen in Thomson and Cowper, into a higher realm, 
and throbs with the impassioned mystical recognition 
of a life in Nature kindred to our own. 

The little book was greeted with derision, and 
Wordsworth wrote a preface for the second edition, 
a kind of manifesto of the new principles, which 
every one should read. He breaks formally in this 
preface with the eighteenth-century literary conven- 
tions about poetry, both as to style and as to subject. 
He demands that poetry use a selection of the actual 
language of men. When Cowper wants to describe 
a man smoking, he says 44 the sturdy churl " stops for 
nothing : — 



422 



MODERN ENGLAND 



" But now and then with pressure of his thumb 
To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube 
That fumes beneath his nose." 1 

Wordsworth would have mentioned the pipe right 
out. Then Wordsworth pleads that poetry occupy 
itself no longer with the artificial life of society, 
with what separates man from man, but with the 
affections common to all, the primal, elemental expe- 
riences that bind the poor and the rich in the bond 
of a common humanity. This preface is a memorable 
thing in English critical prose. 



II. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey 

Words- Wordsworth spent his life and wrote his poems in 
1770-1850. loyalty to his faith. He loved the country, and he 
lived in one of the fairest regions of England, among 
the mountains and lakes of Westmoreland, which he 
has endeared forever to all who care for his poems. 
Life. His sister Dorothy lived with him, a woman of a 
beautiful soul. He married a cousin named Mary 
Hutchinson, and the tender depth of his feeling for 
her shows in many of his poems. During his early 
years he was very poor, but in later life he was ap- 
pointed controller of stamps, and had money enough 
to live with frugal comfort. It was a life of deep 
retirement, of contemplation, and of peace ; and out 
of it came a poetry which speaks to the heart with 
strange, penetrating purity. 



i "The Task," Book V. 



WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 423 



The central passion of the democratic thought Subjects, 
which was entering the world shows itself in Words- 
worth, not in excited dreams of a new social order, 
but in reverent interpretation of the lives of the 
laboring poor. Ladies fair and lovely knights had Human- 
up to this time peopled the world of the imagina- especially 
tion ; great personages and clever personages and the poor * 
leaders of society and people to whom extraordi- 
nary things happened had moved there. Words- 
worth introduced into this world, where life can 
never die, people of a different kind : an old shep- 
herd grieving for his son, moving among the mists 
to his sheepf old ; a highland girl reaping long rows 
of grain and singing to the movement of her scythe ; 
a little cottage maid with tangled curls, who knew 
better than any philosopher that death is shadow, 
life the only truth. The leech-gatherer, the sailor, 
the beggar, the pedler, the wood-cutter, and many 
more simple folk meet us in Wordsworth's poetry. 
They are not people of elegant leisure, occupied with 
their pleasures or their passions; they' work with 
their hands, helping in the fruitful labor of the world. 

Poet of humanity, Wordsworth was also the poet Nature, 
of Nature. The two were never separate in his 
thought. He tells us in the " Prelude " that the 
first men who pleased him were shepherds, seen 
from afar in the mountains, uplifted against the 
sunset sky; his characters always move in wide 
reaches of light under the open heavens. When he 
turns to Nature, she gains new glory in his eyes from 
her fellowship and kinship with man. Wordsworth 
did not simply admire Nature as the eighteenth cen- 
tury did. He loved her because she was alive with 



424 



MODERN ENGLAND 



a life full of joy and mystery. The time of heavy, 
cold, descriptive poetry is past ; Wordsworth makes 
us know Nature, not by careful enumeration of parts, 
but by the emotion she kindles in his mind. The 
" Prelude " tells us the slow process by which the sen- 
sitive child grew to feel in all her ministries a revela- 
tion of the very life of God. There came to him — 

" A sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air, 
And the blue sky and in the mind of man : 
A motion and a spirit that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts, 
And rolls through all things." 1 

Poetic Most of Wordsworth's best poetry was written 

quality. between 1798 and 1806 ; it is made up chiefly of 
lyrics, sonnets, and of short narrative poems, but it 
includes also his noble autobiography in blank verse, 
the "Prelude." These poems are the result, to use 
his own fine phrase, of emotion recollected in tran- 
quillity. A certain hush broods over them, and we 
realize, as we read, that out of great sorrow and 
searching of heart the poet's spirit has found peace. 
Sometimes his theory leads him astray, and he drops 
into prose ; simplicity becomes flatness in lines like 
these : — 

" Who weeps for strangers ? Many wept 
"For George and Sarah Green ; 
Wept for that pair's unhappy fate, 
Whose grave may here be seen." 2 

1 " Lines written above Tintern Abbey." 

2 " George and Sarah Green." 



WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 425 



But the same poem rises into purest poetry a little 
later : — 

"Now do these sternly featured hills, 
Look gently on this grave, 
And quiet now are the depths of air 
As a sea without a wave. 

" But deeper lies the heart of peace 
In quiet more profound, 
The very heart of quietness 
Is in this churchyard bound. 

"And from all agony .of mind, 
It keeps them safe, and far 
From fear and grief, and from all need 
Of sun or guiding star." 

Coleridge's criticism on Wordsworth is the best 
and most penetrating that has ever been written, 
though many have written well of a poet who has 
in singular degree the power to draw to himself the 
hearts of men. The chief merits of Wordsworth's 
poetry are, says Coleridge, first, an austere purity of 
language ; second, a weight and sanity of thought ; 
third, the " curiosa felicitas " of diction, the sinewy 
strength and originality of single lines ; fourth, the 
perfect truth to Nature in his images and descrip- 
tions ; fifth, a meditative pathos, a union of deep and 
subtle thought with sensibility ; and last, the gift 
of imagination in the highest and strictest sense of 
the word. 

In Wordsworth's later life, though he still occa- Later 
sionally wrote a fine poem, his inspiration flagged. 
His long epic, " The Excursion," has strong passages, 
but it is weighted down with moralizing ; in his 



426 



MODERN ENGLAND 



shorter poems, the " vision splendid " has faded into 
the "light of common day." His genius no longer 
" startles and waylays." He had become less happy ; 
the conditions of national life did not satisfy him ; 
he noted with intense regret the encroachments, 
already beginning, of the modern factory system on 
the lives of the rural poor. He took to preaching 
and pleading, and his natural magic of utterance 
failed. In 1843 he was made poet laureate ; in 1850 
he died. 

Samuel We turn to the study of Wordsworth's brother in 
Coleridge, spirit, Coleridge. He was not a country boy, steeped 
1772-1834. j n profound love of Nature, as Wordsworth was, 
he was city-bred. He had been a classmate of the 
gentle essayist, Charles Lamb, at the Bluecoat 
School in London, and then had gone to Cam- 
bridge shortly after Wordsworth had quitted it. 
He did not know or love the real world so well as 
Wordsworth, but the passion for freedom and the 
quickening impulse of love for all things living 
which the new democracy brought with it entered 
the inner world of high romance in which his spirit 
dwelt. His career, however, was broken and clouded, 
Life. and the promise of his youth overcast. Unstable, 
despite his genius and warmth of nature, he fell 
under the dominion of the opium habit, and though 
the force of the habit was largely overcome during 
his later years, partly by his own efforts, partly by 
the ministries of devoted friends, it left him shat- 
tered, — a wreck, though a noble wreck, of what he 
might have been. 
Work. The poetry of Coleridge belongs to his youth ; 

there is very little of it, but that little is of 



WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 427 



purest gold. " The Ancient Mariner," of which we " The An- 

ci.6nt; IVXcir— 

have already spoken, is his most important poem, and iner." 
wonderful it is. It shows, in its use of the irregular 
old ballad form, as well as in other ways, that impulse 
to return to the past for inspiration which blends so 
curiously in the poetry of the first of the nineteenth 
century with the forces making toward the future. 
Its romanticism strikes the chord not only of surprise 
at outward marvel, but of wonder in the presence of 
spiritual mystery, dimly understood. 

"Christabel" is, next to " The Ancient Mariner," "Christa- 

bel." 

Coleridge's most important poem ; but, like most of 
his best poetry, it is unfinished. It is a mediaeval 
tale of unholy magic weaving its spells over innocence 
and faith. It has the high mystical beauty, the en- 
chantment of style, of which only Coleridge is master. 
" The most decrepit vocable in the language," says 
Lowell, " throws away its crutches to dance and sing 
at his piping." 

Coleridge produced also a translation of Schiller's other 
" Wallenstein," and several dramas ; but the body poetry * 
of his poetic writing is small. Nearly all the best 
of it is the result of the brief, happy time which 
he spent in intimate relations with Wordsworth and 
his sister Dorothy. When we find him in middle 
life rescued at last, after years of weakness, and re- 
stored to tranquillity, the poet has vanished and a 
philosopher has taken his place. This is not wholly 
loss. Coleridge was not only an inspired poet ; he was Prose, 
a thinker of rare depth and power of spiritual insight, andphiio- 
His prose works are fragmentary, for he was a broken s °P hlcaL 
man when he wrote most of them ; but they are full 
of suggestion. His "Biographia Literaria" contains 



428 



MODERN ENGLAND 



the most pregnant literary criticism that England had 
then seen ; it is largely occupied with a discussion 
of the poetry of Wordsworth, but it has also much 
valuable treatment of general critical principles. 
His " Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare " dealt a 
death-blow at the eighteenth-century custom of dis- 
paraging our greatest Englishman, and his " Aids to 
influence Reflection " well justifies its title. It was as a talker, 
convef- h however, that Coleridge, like Dr. J ohnson before him, 
sation. exerted his greatest power over the rising genera- 
tion. He sat on the brow of Highgate Hill, near 
London, where friends had offered him a refuge, and 
poured forth the treasures of his mind for whosoever 
would hear. It was a mind nourished on the recent 
idealist philosophy of Germany, which had put a 
wholly new face on philosophic thought. Coleridge 
used philosophy of this order to feed his Chris- 
tianity, for he was a profoundly Christian man; and 
he became a quickening force in the spiritual life of 
the rising generation. The deeper Christianity of 
the Victorian age, represented by such men as Car- 
dinal Newman, and Frederick Denison Maurice, owes 
much to him. 

Yet, after all, it is as a poet that Coleridge is 
remembered best. His intellectual and spiritual 
power passed into the minds of other men, and was 
fertile there ; his imagination gave us works which, 
if few, are immortal. They hold us spellbound, as 
the Ancient Mariner held the Wedding Guest, but 
with a lovelier spell : — 



" A sealike sound the branches breathe, 
Stirred by the breeze that loiters there, 



WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 429 



And all that stretch their limbs beneath, 
Forget the coil of mortal care ; 
Strange mists along the margin rise, 
To heal the guests who thither come, 
And fit the soul to reendure 
Its earthly martyrdom." 

1 Not much need be said about Robert Southey, the Robert 
third member of this older group of poets. He was 1774-^843. 
poet, not by right divine as were the other two, but 
by virtue of the contagious fervor of the times. 
When a young man, he shared the democratic pas- 
sion of Coleridge, and planned with him a socialist 
community called the Pantisocracy on the banks of 
the Susquehanna ; but an early marriage — he and 
Coleridge married sisters — turned his thoughts to 
the realities of life. He settled in the Lake country 
and became an industrious, exemplary man of letters. 
He poured forth various volumes of verse, — 44 Tha- 
laba," 44 The Curse of Kehama," 44 Roderick," — con- 
cocted to meet the rising craving for romantic tales ; 
he produced also some very good prose, the best of 
which is the 44 Life of Nelson." He was an excellent 
example of a conscientious literary man without 
genius, and England made him poet laureate. He 
held the office till his death, in 1843, when the 
laurel was placed on the worthier brows of Words- 
worth. 



III. Byron, Shelley, Keats 

George Gordon, Lord Byron, was the eldest of the George 

I , . , Gordon, 

younger group 01 revolutionary poets ; his stormy Lord 

life and work heave with the unrest that marked 1788-1824. 



430 



MODERN ENGLAND 



the subsiding passion of the Revolution. The spirit 
of revolt is in them, the assertion of the unlimited 
claim of the individual on the universe. They are 
full of pride and pain. 
Life. Byron belonged by birth to the English aristoc- 

racy . Haughty and passionate from his childhood, 
he was brought up by an erratic mother with a vio- 
lent temper, from which he suffered many things. 
He was superbly handsome, despite a lameness that 
embittered his life. He won early fame by the publi- 
cation of the first cantos of " Childe Harold," but the 
English public turned against him because of quar- 
rels in his domestic affairs, and he resented their 
criticism intensely. He moved thereafter through 
a life, on the Continent, marred by recklessness and 
self-indulgence, to a noble death ; for he died of a 
fever contracted in Greece, whither he had gone to 
help the Greeks in their war of independence. 
Person- Byron's strong nature found nothing in the world 
allty " so interesting as his own passions and sorrows ; and 
because he was so interested in them, and because 
he had that strange force we call genius, all Europe 
was interested in them too. The world has come a 
little to doubt the value of a vociferous outpouring 
of rebellion and grievance such as Byron -gave us in 
his large rhythmic harmonies : — 

" What boots it now that Byron bore 
With haughty pain that mocked the smart 
Through Europe to the iEtolian shore 
The pageant of his bleeding heart ? 
That Europe counted every groan, 
And England made his pain her own ? " 1 

1 Stanzas from the "Grande Chartreuse." 



WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 431 



queries Matthew Arnold. But for the time, the dark, 
romantic, self-willed figure seemed the controlling 
genius of the age, and Byron is still known through- 
out Europe better than any other English author 
except Shakespeare. 

The work that insured Byron's popularity was a Work, 
series of wild romances in verse : " The Giaour," 
" The Bride of Abyclos," " The Corsair," " Lara," Romances 

J 'in verse. 

"Parisina." They had force and fire, and they told 
more or less stirring tales, but their sound and fury 
signify little to modern ears. " Childe Harold," "Chiide 
begun in 1812, finished in 1818, is a greater work. 1812^1816, 
The last cantos were written under the gentle and 1818 ' 
ennobling influence of Shelley, with whom Byron 
spent some time by the beautiful lake of Geneva. 
They give scope for splendidly phrased descriptions 
of Nature, and for eloquent and vivid descriptions 
of the monuments of the past. In these Byron 
showed that strong historic sense which was one of 
the best features of his intellectual equipment. 

" Manfred " and "Cain" are poems of still another "Man- 
character ; in them Byron tried to handle wild ^rr!" 
supernatural motifs, something after the fashion J^™'" 
of Goethe in "Faust," and, despite occasional pas- 
sages of sombre beauty, he must be accounted to 
have failed. His lyrical power was crude and inter- 
mittent, and he was never really at home when he 
left the world of visible reality. It is in " Don Juan," « Don 
Byron's masterpiece, that his genius found itself fully isS-isat. 
at last. The brilliant, mocking poem is wholly of 
the earth, earthy. Hero, story, setting, style, all 
perfectly reflect the cynical disillusion, the unre- 
deemed worldliness, of the post-revolutionary period 



432 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Character- 
istics. 



Percy 
Bysshe 
Shelley, 
1792-1822. 



Relation 
to the 
Revolu- 
tion. 



in which Byron lived. Its easy movement passes 
with perfect facility from sensuous passion to bitter 
satire, and these two aspects represent the range of 
the poem. It is significant and interesting ; for it 
shows how a man who, despite the romantic storm 
and stress of his youth, was at heart a realist, un- 
visited by any far-reaching vision of spiritual hope, 
looked out on the chaotic society and the shattered 
faiths that followed the Revolution. 

Byron wrote various other poems, including several 
dramas of mediocre value. " The moment he begins 
to reflect," said Goethe, who nevertheless admired 
him greatly, u he is a child." His imagination had 
little power to penetrate or to soar. His style was 
careless in the extreme, full of lapses from taste and 
melody ; but it was also full of easy eloquence, and 
it gave a refreshing sense of power. We admire 
Byron's genius most in " Don Juan " ; but we like 
best to remember him when, with firm touch and 
with his eye on the object, he describes some great 
thing, charged with historic associations, which he 
knew in the actual world, or when, as in the " Pris- 
oner of Chillon," he gives a truly felt presentation of 
the fate of a martyr to liberty. 

Byron's poetry is full of the forces of revolt and 
of self-assertion. But there were nobler forces at 
work in the Revolution, impulses not of personal 
desire, but of a great love, yearning toward justice 
and social peace. These impulses in their purity and 
intensity are expressed in the work of the greatest 
English lyric poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley 
was the son of a stiff-necked English baronet. Like 
Byron, he belonged to the aristocracy, and grew up 



WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 433 



in the period of shattered faiths that followed the 
Revolution. But the conventions of class and rank 
were nothing to him, and through all the reactionary 
deadness of the times his spirit caught the light of 
the new democracy and shone with that light like 
the clear morning star. While still a schoolboy, 
there came to him, as he tells us in the " Ode to 
Intellectual Beauty," a vision of ideal loveliness. 
He followed that gleam through the world. He is 
the eternal seeker, and his voice is the melody of one 
who watches in hope. 

Shelley's passion for freedom controlled his life. Life and 
It led him into touching, amusing attempts at reform amy° n 
in his early years. It shaped his practical destiny. 
He was expelled from his University, Oxford, 
because of a crude pamphlet he had written " On 
the Necessity of Atheism." He made a hasty and 
unhappy first marriage because of his desire to set 
a schoolgirl free from the " tyranny " of her school. 
Later, he set the laws of marriage at defiance, and 
lived in self-appointed exile in Italy, with Mary, who 
later became his second wife. She was the daughter 
of William Godwin, who had been the intellectual 
inspiration and guide of Shelley's youth. Shelley 
died while he was still young, only thirty years old, 
drowned in the beautiful bay of Spezia. 

In Shelley's personal life there is much to regret ; 
yet one cannot read the testimony of his contem- 
poraries, Byron, Hogg, Trelawney, without being 
struck by the impression of ardent purity, gentleness, 
honor, which he made upon them. One and all 
hailed him as the rarest spirit they had ever known. 
Indeed, his whole being vibrated with love for 



434 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Work. 



" Queen 

Mab," 

1813. 

" Alastor, 
1816. 



" Laon and 
Cythna : 
or, The 
Revolt of 
Islam," 
1818. 



Nature, for the ideal principle of beauty, for free- 
dom, and for his fellow-men. Unlike Sir Thomas 
More, who rather wished than hoped to see Utopia 
in England, Shelley had so strong a faith in human 
nature, in its intrinsic goodness and power, that he 
believed that the day would come when men would 
actually see and realize their ideal. He may have 
been right or wrong ; but his renovating vision has 
thrilled many hearts from his day to our own. In 
common with most revolutionary thinkers of his 
time, he believed that worn-out governments and 
creeds must be discarded before the new society 
could be formed. So he was an iconoclast, as the 
phrase goes ; that is, he believed in the overthrow of 
authority and law. But his best poetry chants not 
of battle nor of destruction, but of the Vision behind 
the veil and of a hope that cannot die. 

As we follow Shelley's writings through the scant 
five years of his literary maturity, we can see how 
his genius ripens and gains in patience and in 
actuality. His first long poem was " Queen Mab," a 
boyish production, full of crude speculations. Next 
came, when he was twenty -four years old, "Alastor," 
and here Shelley found himself. The poem renders 
the experience of a lonely soul, that pursues through 
all the universe its haunting vision of beauty, soothed 
by the solemn ministries of Nature alone. In motif, 
"Alastor" recalls the "Faerie Queene." 

Shelley's next important poem was the " Revolt of 
Islam." It is a romantic epic in Spenserian stanza, 
all about a great struggle for Freedom, led by a 
youth, Laon, and a maiden,^ Cythna, of surpassing 
beauty. There is a gloomy shadow of a Tyrant, 



WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 



435 



there are wars and famines and images of horror, 
there are Southern seas and skies ; in the end the 
lovers, martyrs, yet triumphant in defeat, join after 
death the sacred company in the Temple of the Spirit. 
It is all told in verse of ardent, daring melody ; one 
feels the soul of Shelley and of youth itself in the 
poem ; but it is too far from reality to be great. 

This is not true of the next long poem, written in "Prome- 
1819. The " Prometheus Unbound " is the supreme bound/' 11 ' 
expression of Shelley's genius and of revolutionary 1819, 
faith. It may seem strange to attribute a sense of 
reality to this lyrical drama, for the poem deals 
with no possible earthly story, but with a great 
primeval myth. But the myth is real to Shelley. 
He takes the old story from iEschylus, about Prome- 
theus the Titan, who stole fire from heaven to benefit 
the race of men, and who was therefore doomed by 
Jupiter to hang in torture for endless ages on the 
precipices of Mt. Caucasus. In Shelley's mind, the 
Rebel has become the Hero, who endures in awful 
patience, the representative of a humanity tortured, 
yet purified through its pains. The "Prometheus 
Unbound," in its mysticism, will always remain to 
many a sealed book ; but even those who care noth- 
ing for the intellectual conception can delight in the 
lyric beauty, and in an imagery and an interpreta- 
tion of Nature unrivalled in English verse. 

Even while Shelley was producing the "Prome- "The 
theus," he turned aside from this drama of the upper 1819"' 
air to write swiftly and fervently a drama of solid 
earth. 44 The Cenci " is firm as sculpture in its out- 
lines ; it has more dramatic power and terror than 
any tragedy since the seventeenth century. It shows 
us a wholly new side of Shelley's genius. 



436 



MODERN ENGLAND 



"Epipsy- This list of Shelley's longest poems by no means 
I82i!° n ' exhausts, it only suggests, his creative energy. 
"Ado- Others, less long, hardly less great, crowd on the 
1821.' memory: " Hellas," " Epipsychidion," "Adonais." 
"Hellas," The " Adonais," Shelley's elegy on his brother poet, 
" Th T * Keats, ran ks with the great elegies of the English 
umph of tongue, with " Lycidas " and " In Memoriam." It has 
finished)?" not the Christian note of clear faith as these others 
have; Shelley's intuition of spiritual things was vague 
and pantheistic, and the inner truth of Christianity 
he was always unable to discern through the tradi- 
tions of his day. But spiritual insight of its own 
order the "Adonais" surely possesses. No other 
elegy so palpitates with the sense of the mystery of 
life, and its unity in man and Nature through the 
whole creation. 

Lyrics. But Shelley is greatest of all perhaps in his minor 
lyrics. They soar like his own skylark in the free 
heaven of idealism. Some of them are as elabo- 
rate in structure as the odes of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, but they give quite a different impression of 
movement and freedom. Others penetrate the soul 
with a poignant simplicity of phrasing. They sing 
of the changing phases of the life of Nature, of the 
beauty that dies as it is born, of the darkness that 
forever blends with the dawning light; in like man- 
ner, they sing of the swiftly changing passions of 
the soul of the poet, and through all change they 
seek, but never find, the beauty that shall endure. 

In all Shelley's work glows such an intuition of spir- 
itual loveliness, so intense a faith in a nobler future 
for this old world, that we must hail him, not only as 
poet, but as prophet. He died in youth, nor can any 



WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 437 



one guess what he might have achieved had he lived 
to fuller manhood. As it is, he seems like the very 
embodiment of the new youth of the world. A few 
lines of his own give the secret of his power : — 

"Within a cavern of man's trackless spirit 

Is throned an Image, so intensely fair, 
That the adventurous thoughts that wander near it 

Worship, and as they kneel tremble and wear 
The splendor of its presence, and the light 

Penetrates their dreamlike frame 
Till they become charged with the strength of flame." 

John Keats, the last of this group of poets, and John 
the youngest, was not, like Byron and Shelley, of 1795-1821. 
noble birth ; his father had been in youth a hostler, 
and later owned a stable in London. The boy went 
to a good school, and was apprenticed to a surgeon. 
Till his love of letters brought him into literary 
society, his connections were unpoetic. He lived in Life and 
London, which was, however, more accessible to the ai5y° n " 
country then than now, until, with a wasting dis- 
ease upon him, he went to Italy, there to die when 
he was only twenty-four years old. 

It does not seem to matter much where poets are 
born, or how they are brought up. This poor boy, 
who had so little of beauty or wonder in the outward 
condition of his life, really lived in a world which 
any one of us might envy. " The other day," he 
said to a friend when at the medical school, " during 
the lecture there came a sunbeam into the room, and 
with it a whole troop of creatures floating in the 
ray ; and I was off with them to Oberon and fairy- 
land." From fairy-land, one is tempted to say, he 
never returned. 



438 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Poet of the 

artistic 

revolt. 



Work. 

" Endym- 
ion," 1819. 
" Hype- 
rion," 
1819. 



"Lamia,' 
1819. 



Keats took refuge from a sordid present in a world 
of dreams. He cared nothing for political or social 
freedom ; his poetry shows no trace of the passion 
of brotherhood, almost no trace of human feeling. 
Only through his art do we recognize in him a child 
of the Revolution. His early poem, " Sleep and 
Poetry," marks the entire breaking away from the 
traditions of the eighteenth century. Keats took 
the rhymed couplet, which had been so stiff and 
smart in the hands of Pope, ran over the ends of 
lines at his will, let it fall as it would into irregular 
melodic units, gave it freedom, variety, sweetness. 
No matter what form he chose as his work went on, 
blank verse or lyric ode, his grace and richness of 
utterance were constant. He set poetry free from 
measured rule, and let it beat close to the rhythmic 
heart of life. 

In subject, also, Keats showed how the romantic 
temper had conquered at last. He revelled in all 
marvel and in all beauty. In his " Endymion " and 
in the noble fragment, " Hyperion," his mind sped 
back to that ancient world of myth where fair and 
divine forms meet an innocent humanity only less 
fair, in the green dusk of the woodlands or the cav- 
erns below the sea ; or he seeks the abode where 
mighty Titans bemoan with the large utterance of 
the early gods their vanished glory, recognizing to 
their sorrow that the day is to those younger deities 
who, first in beauty, must therefore be first also in 
might. " Lamia," also, and the exquisite short " Ode 
to a Grecian Urn," breathe the classic inspiration. 
Again, as in " The Eve of St. Agnes," the unfinished 
"Eve of St. Mark," and the ballad, 44 La Belle Dame 



WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 439 



sans Merci," Keats turns to the middle ages for 
inspiration, as Coleridge did in " Christabel," and 
finds there a beauty less charged with mysticism 
than did Coleridge, but aglow with color and feel- 
ing. The same romantic temper controls his shorter 
poems, especially the handful of immortal odes, — J^9° des ' 
" To a Nightingale," " To Psyche," " To Autumn," 
"To Melancholy," "On a Grecian Urn." By these 
alone, even had he left nothing else, we should know 
that a great poet had been with us. 

" Beauty is truth, truth beauty ; this is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know : " 

so Keats formulated his creed ; and he said the same Distinc- 
thing in prose, when he wrote : "What the imagina- p^wer. 
tion seizes as beauty must be truth — whether it 
existed before or not." "I have loved the principle 
of beauty in all things," he said in his last days. 
It is as high priest of beauty that he is immortal. 
We can notice with more delight the return of the 
sense of beauty to our literature in his work than in 
that of his contemporaries, because there is less to 
distract us from it. 

Sometimes the beauty which he reveals to us is The appeal 
sensuous, sometimes imaginative. Keats's senses t0 the eye ' 
were perhaps more delicate and intense than those 
of any other among our poets. Color was an ecstasy 
to him, and he makes it an ecstasy to us. He was 
more sensitive than even his master, Spenser, to the 
appeal of sound, from the " solemn tenor and deep 
organ tone " of the speech of the Titan woman to — 

" A little noiseless noise among the leaves, To the ear. 

Born of the very sense that silence heaves." 



440 



MODERN ENGLAND 



promise. 



To the Fragrance and even taste are noted again and again 
imagina- ^ verse. Yet his poetry, though responsive 
from first to last to the charm of the senses, recog- 
nizes constantly a nobler appeal. This is the appeal 
of the imaginative past. It is the sense that we are 
made free of the whole realm of the beautiful, opened 
by the human race from the beginning of time, that 
gives breadth and power to a poetry into which the 
air of the actual world is seldom indeed allowed to 
enter. 

Keats's There are indications in Keats's poetry and also in 
his letters that had he lived he hoped to emerge from 
his dreams and to throw the light of his imagination 
upon the world of men. But this was not vouch- 
safed him. The year 1819 was the annus mirabilis 
of his genius. In this year he produced " The Eve 
of St. Agnes," " Hyperion," and his great odes. It 
was the year of the " Prometheus Unbound," a nota- 
ble year indeed in the annals of English poetry ! The 
next year he sickened, and in 1821 he died. Matthew 
Arnold says, quoting from one of his letters : " No 
one else in English poetry save Shakespeare has in 
expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his 
perfection of loveliness. 4 1 think,' he said humbly, 
'I shall be among the English poets after my death.' 
. . . He is ; he is with Shakespeare." 



IV. General Characteristics 

We have passed the great poets of the first of the 
century in rapid review. Widely different though 
they are, their achievement, when we look at it 
broadly, yet shows a certain unity. It has been said 



WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 441 



to express the renascence of wonder. And indeed The renas- 
the sense of wonder rests on all of it, whether evi- wonder, 
denced in the crude excitements in which Byron 
revelled, in the contemplative awe of Wordsworth, 
in the darting spiritual intuition of Shelley, or in 
the quest for remote delights of Coleridge and Keats. 
But the renascence of beauty is as strong as the 
renascence of wonder ; beauty, which had fled the Of beauty, 
eighteenth century, abides forever here, whether she 
" dwells in deep retreats " as in Wordsworth, or 
flashes glory on us wherever Ave may gaze, as in the 
work of Keats and Shelley. Again, and here we The new 
meet what is rather a new birth than a rebirth, the democ- 
exultant impulse of freedom and brotherhood is almost racy " 
without exception the informing spirit of this modern 
song. Sometimes this spirit shows itself in tender 
brooding over the lives of the individual poor, some- 
times in enraptured distant vision of a regenerate 
world ; but always it comes from the quickened 
sense of the sacredness of humanity. And with this 
new feeling comes an awakened sense of loving kin- 
ship with the great visible world which is, at least 
while he is on pilgrimage, the home of man. Noth- The love 

. . \ c "xt , of Nature. 

mg like the passionate love of Nature shown by 
these poets had been seen in our English literature 
since the days of Cynewulf ; nothing like it has 
been seen since. The delighted interpretation of 
her language, the joy in her beauty, the sympathy 
with her life, enriched our race with a neglected 
heritage, and the Return to Nature is a great watch- 
word which is not yet exhausted. 

The quest for wonder, for beauty, for freedom 
and brotherhood, for fellowship with Nature, play 



442 



MODERN ENGLAND 



into one another till cause cannot be distinguished 
from effect in all this poetry. But the great words 
which remain in our mind as we turn away are 
Summary, two : Romance and Democracy. Romance and de- 
and de- mocracy ! Many will say that as the century has 
mocracy. a{ j vance( i they keep pace with each other no longer ; 

and indeed democracy seems unromantic enough in 
some of its aspects to-day. But it is well, perhaps, 
for us to remember that the two blended and en- 
hanced each the other in the great burst of song that 
accompanied the advent of the modern world. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

General. Saintsbury, History of Nineteenth Century Lit- 
erature. Mrs. Oliphant, Literary History of the Nineteenth 
Century. Dowden, Studies in Literature ; Transcripts and 
Studies. Herford, The Age of Wordsworth. Matthew 
Arnold, Essays in Criticism. Shairp, The Poetic Interpreta- 
tion of Nature ; Aspects of Poetry. Bagehot, Literary Studies. 
Lowell, Among my Books. 

Wordsworth. Globe edition, Introduction by John Mor- 
ley. Selections, ed. by Matthew Arnold. Life, by Myers 
(English Men of Letters). Knight (3 vols). Essays, by Ar- 
nold, Hutton, Bagehot, Aubrey de Vere, Pater, Low- 
ell (3 essays), Leslie Stephen. Knight, Through the 
Wordsworth Country. 

Coleridge. Globe edition, Life, by Campbell. Life, Traill 
(English Men of Letters), Caine (Great Writers Series). 
Essays, Pater, Swinburne, Arnold, Lowell. Selections 
from prose writings, H. A. Beers. Brandl, S. T. Coleridge 
and the English Romantic School. 

Byron. Cambridge Byron, ed. by Paul Elmer More. 
Life, Nichol (English Men of Letters), Noel (Great Writers 
Series). Essays, John Morley, Macaulay, Swinburne 
("Wordsworth and Byron "), Arnold, Trelawney. 

Shelley. Centenary edition, Woodberry (6 vols.). Selec- 
tions, Stopford Brooke (Golden Treasury Series). Life, Ed- 
ward Dowden (2 vols.), Symonds (English Men of Letters), 
Garnett (Great Writers Series), William Rossetti. Essays, 



WORDSWORTH TO KEATS 443 



by Bagehot, Huttox, Arnold, Dowden. Scudder, Intro- 
duction to the "Prometheus Unbound." Publications of the 
Shelley Society. 

Keats. Cambridge Keats, ed. by H. E. Scudder. Life, by 
Colvin (English Men of Letters), Rossetti (Great Writers 
Series). Essays, Lowell, Arnold. 

See, also, articles on all these men in Dictionary of National 
Biography. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

This chapter offers material for a year's study. Hints of 
minimum reading may be given. From Wordsworth, Arnold's 
" Selections " ; from Coleridge, " The Ancient Mariner " and 
" Christabel " ; from Shelley, the " Adonais " and the Lyrics 
published with "Prometheus Unbound." From Byron, "The 
Prisoner of Chillon," and selections from " Childe Harold " ; 
from Keats, " The Eve of St. Agnes," the great odes. 

Wordsworth. Take Coleridge's analysis, and let the class 
find illustrations of every point he makes, favorable and un- 
favorable. Let the " Ode on the Intimation of Immortality," 
the " Ode to Duty," and some of the sonnets, be learned by 
heart, and thoroughly discussed. Subjects for study : Words- 
worth's Treatment of Humanity. What kind of people? where 
placed? what happens to them? Wordsworth's Treatment of 
Nature. Compare with Cowper. Wordsworth's Poetic Theory 
and Practice. Wordsworth's Spiritual Attitude. Special topics : 
Wordsworth's Sonnets compared with Milton's, Bird-life in 
Wordsworth, Wordsworth's Children. 

Coleridge. " The Ancient Mariner " should be read with 
consecutive analysis. Watch the pictures, follow and interpret 
a little the symbolism, be sensitive to the verse movement. 
Special topics : Compare "The Ancient Mariner" with old bal- 
lads of shipwreck and the supernatural ; Coleridge's Feeling for 
Nature compared with Wordsworth's. 

Shelley. Reconstruct Shelley's personality from his lyrics. 
Treatment of Nature compared with Wordsworth — favorite 
type of landscape, method of interpretation. The meaning of 
freedom to Shelley. Why could not Shelley draw a character 
as Shakespeare could? Analyze the metrical structure of 
the " Ode to the West Wind," the " Ode to Liberty," the cho- 
ruses to " Hellas." Special topics : The " Adonais " compared 
with "Lycidas," The Debt of the "Adonais" to the Greek 



444 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Elegies, Shelley as a Color ist, Shelley's Defence of Poetry com- 
pared with Sir Philip Sidney's. 

Byron. Illustrate with photographs, if possible, Byron's de- 
scriptions of statues, architecture, scenery, as, for instance, 
the "Dying Gladiator," the "Niobe,"the "Lake of Geneva." 
Compare the sources of discontent in Byron, Wordsworth, and 
Shelley. Compare their enthusiasms. In what points does Byron 
surpass Shelley ? Special topic : Byron's Handling of the Spen- 
serian Stanza in " Childe Harold " studied in Comparison with 
Shelley's in " Adonais," Keats's in " Eve of St. Agnes." 

Keats. Compare the romanticism of Keats with that of 
Scott, of Coleridge, of Byron. Illustrate from Keats's poems 
the sensitiveness of his eye, of his ear, of his touch, of his taste, 
of his smell. Describe some of the pictures from the world 
in which his imagination moved. Special topics : Compare 
style and substance in Keats's " Sleep and Poetry " and Pope's 
" Essay on Criticism " ; compare the treatment of Greek my- 
thology in Keats and Shelley. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

The work of the class should be detailed, devoted chiefly to 
close study of a few poems, and to the enjoyment of one poet 
after another. A few talks from the teacher on more general 
lines could make more vivid the whole character of the period : 
Social Ideals in Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley ; The Relation of 
Nature to Humanity in Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats ; 
The Spiritual Outlook of the Revolutionary Poets. 



CHAPTER IV 



PROSE TILL 1830 

I. Fiction 

THE spirit of prose, which had so fully controlled 
the literature of the eighteenth century even 
when that literature happened to be written in 
verse, slipped once more into the background during 
the thirty years after the revolutionary movement. 
Delightful and important prose was written at this 
time ; but as a whole the prose had neither the scope 
nor the significance of the poetry. 

The prose of the period is, as we should expect, 
touched with the instinct of romance, and its great- 
est name is that of a novelist, — Sir Walter Scott. 
Scott, like Coleridge, wrote in both verse and prose ; 
but we put Coleridge into the last chapter because 
he was poet in the depths of him, and we put Scott 
here because, while his tales in verse are full of fire 
and facile grace, the entire breadth and force of his 
nature found no outlet till he turned to prose. 

Scott was an almost exact contemporary of Words- Sir Walter 
worth ; but he was not bound to the little group of 1771-1832. 
the older revolutionary poets by any personal ties. 
He was a Scotchman, and his first and last passion 
was for the romantic history and legend of his native 
land. We know as we read him that many of his 
instincts were Celtic, though the sturdy Saxon sense 

445 



446 



MODERN ENGLAND 



for facts controls his ardent romantic impulses. The 
combination is a good one, for a writer of fiction ; the 
nineteenth century was to see it again in later years 
in Robert Louis Stevenson. 
Scott's Scott gained popularity more easily than his greater 

poetry. contemporaries of the South. His first original work 
took the public by storm. This was a series of 
spirited romances in verse, — " The Lay of the Last 
Minstrel," " Marmion," " The Lady of the Lake," and 
others not so good as these. To this day there are no 
stories better told in English verse than Scott's. But 
his poetry had no profound imaginative quality like 
that of his contemporaries. He could dream dreams, 
but he could not see visions. Nor had he magic of 
utterance, though he had sincerity and fire. He used 
the rapidly moving couplet of four beats, which is the 
basal measure of " Christabel " ; but if we put the 
"Lay of the Last Minstrel " beside " Christabel," we 
feel instantly how Coleridge is beyond calculation 
the master in imparting those undertones and over- 
tones, those subtle variations in pause and accent, 
that give enchantment to the music of verse. 

The poetry of Scott was just the kind to have 
great vogue for a time and then to fall into neg- 
lect. Byron began to pour forth his early romances, 
— far more fervid and surprising than those of Scott, 
though less healthy and to-day less interesting ; 
fickle readers turned to the new voice, and it seemed 
as if Scott's day were over. 
Scott's Then, in 1814, appeared an anonymous novel called 

"Waverley." It was full of adventure, humor, and 
charm. We must remember that there were very 
few good novels in those days ; the art of fiction 



PROSE TILL 1830 



447 



had fallen from the strong hands of Richardson 
and Fielding into the grasp of inferior people. The 
mystery of the authorship of the book enhanced its 
popularity. Soon others, no less delightful, followed 
in quick succession : " Guy Mannering," " The An- 
tiquary," 44 Old Mortality," " Rob Roy," 44 The Heart 
of Midlothian," 44 The Bride of Lammermoor," 
44 Ivanhoe," 44 The Abbot," 44 Kenilworth," 44 Quentin 
Durward," 44 Redgauntlet," — twenty-nine all told. 
It was not long before the secret leaked out ; the 
author of these novels was Sir Walter Scott. He 
had come to his true power at last. 

The Waverley novels and Scott's second series, 
the 44 Tales of My Landlord," form one of the treas- 
ures of English literature. Seventeen of them are 
historic ; and they are on the whole the most impor- 
tant expression we have of that enthusiasm for the 
past, especially for the middle ages, which has 
stirred so strongly in the quickened modern imagi- 
nation. Scott's scholarship is not always so accurate His revi- 
as that of later times, but he made an honest effort torj? f hls 
to project himself into the periods of which he 
treats, and he had the great help of an eye that could 
see the past clearly. He really created historical 
romance in England as a worthy art form. The 
great novel of the eighteenth century had derived 
its power from its realism. It had been followed by 
a feeble romantic school in fiction, that turned too 
far away from reality to live. Now came Scott, 
and he took this weak romantic impulse, and 
thrilled it into life. His romances have helped us 
all, more perhaps than we realize, to make our inward 
pictures of the times of which they treat. 



448 



MODERN ENGLAND 



His real- 
ism. 



Scott's 

later 

years. 



Jane 

Austen, 

1775-1817. 



But if Scott is a great master of historical fiction, 
it is because he has an intense feeling for reality. 
And after all, his truest and deepest power is not in 
his famous portraits, like those of Queen Elizabeth 
and Mary Queen of Scots and Richard Cceur de 
Lion, fine though these are, but in his keen under- 
standing of the homely Scotch people whom he met 
all around him. Characters like Jeanie Deans and 
Dandie Dinmont are his greatest triumphs. It is in 
his sympathetic and humorous rendering of the life 
of these simple folk that Scott, half unconsciously 
to himself, draws power from the democratic feeling 
of his age ; it is here that his work touches Words- 
worth's, and here, and here only, do his method and 
his genius suggest Shakespeare. 

The end of Scott's life was mournful. He had 
made large sums of money by his books, and he had 
built for himself at Abbotsford a Gothic mansion, 
which visitors still flock to see. In 1825 the failure 
of a business firm for which he held himself respon- 
sible threw him into heavy debt. He was a man 
of high spirit and splendid honor ; he set himself to 
remove that mountain of debt by the labor of his pen. 
He undertook, not only novels, but hackwork of 
various descriptions ; he wrote furiously, copiously, 
— and, at last, badly. Even his valiant and fertile 
powers failed before the Herculean task was achieved. 
His last novels show traces of mental wreck, and 
Scott died at the age of sixty-one, worn out in 
mind as in body. It is an heroic, pitiful tale. 

Sooner or later excellence wins its way. Half a 
dozen modest and unobtrusive novels, the first of 
which had to wait fifteen years for a publisher, have 



PROSE TILL 1830 



449 



quietly slipped into a place beside the work of Scott 
and of the other great revealers of life through fic- 
tion. They were written by Jane Austen, the 
daughter of a country clergyman. Compared with 
the novels of Scott, they seem like dainty miniatures 
on porcelain beside large historical paintings. 

Jane Austen was a witty and pretty woman, and 
she wrote her books on the sly, in the intervals of a 
proper feminine career, seemingly occupied by the 
claims of family and society. Her stories describe 
exactly the life she knew, that of placid villages and 
country houses, where leisure and decorous manners 
prevailed, where the range of interests was still that 
of the eighteenth century, and nothing ever hap- 
pened more exciting than a clandestine engagement. 
Perhaps Miss Austen never realized that she was 
reviving the tradition of close realism in the English 
novel, and doing this with a delicacy and minuteness 
of observation before unknown. But this is what is 
really accomplished by her six stories, 44 Pride and " Sense 

/ -in • -, -t -vr an( * Sensi- 

Prejudice, "Sense and Sensibility, 44 .Northanger biiity," 
Abbey," 44 Mansfield Park," 44 Emma," and 44 Persua- 1811 ' 

J ' " Pride 

sion." We feel in these books the expression of and Pre ju- 

the special sort of fine pleasure felt by a clever and 1812'. 

cheerful woman in the everyday drama of social life. " Mans- 

They show, as the 44 Vicar of Wakefield" showed, Park," 

but as the eighteenth-century fiction in general did 1814 ' 

not show, what delightful humor, untinged by coarse- isie. 

ness, is afforded by the gentle, commonplace play of " North- 

finder 

character on character. Jane Austen is not the first Abbey," 
woman novelist in England ; women from the first 1818 ' 

" Persua- 

took to novel-writing more readily than they had sion," 



taken to any other literary work ; Miss Burney, and 



1818. 



450 



MODERN ENGLAND 



in a way Mrs. Radcliffe, were already respected 
names. But she was the first to take a leading 
place. Her province was the novel of manners ; 
some of her successors, like Charlotte Bronte in 
England, and George Sand in France, were to excel 
in the novel of passion ; others, like George Eliot, 
in what we may call the novel of conscience. No 
great novel of action has ever yet been written by 
a woman. 



II. Essay 

Apart from the novel there was at this time a 
significant development of critical prose. More im- 
The great P or tant perhaps than the work of any one author 
critical was ^he establishment of several great critical re- 

reviews. & 

views ; for from these have proceeded the maga- 
zines of our own day, which have so large a share in 
shaping the intellectual life of the public. First 
of these was the Edinburgh Review, founded in 
1802 by Sydney Smith, Francis Jeffrey, and other 
clever young men, as an organ of the Liberals. The 
Edinburgh has the proud distinction of having in- 
troduced Macaulay and Carlyle to the public. In 
1808, the Quarterly was established, as the organ of 
the Tories, and in 1817, Blackwood's, in which ap- 
peared the charming work of Wilson (Christopher 
North). These were all Scottish. In 1824, was 
started the Westminster, the first important review in 
England. 

Criticism gained a chance to expand and experi- 
ment in these organs. At first it was autocratic in 
tone, and it made some memorable blunders, as when 



PROSE TILL 1830 



451 



Jeffrey denounced Wordsworth, or the Quarterly 
sneered at Keats. But slowly critics learned that 
our minds live more truly by admiration than by 
contempt, and that good criticism must always spring 
from sympathy before it can venture on judgment. 
We may follow in these reviews and their successors 
all the phases through which the great art of criticism 
passes between Johnson and Arnold. 

Among the individual essayists of this period, the Charles 
dearest to us is assuredly Charles Lamb. There is ittSism. 
no more lovable figure in all our long story than this 
gentle friend of Coleridge. We love the man for 
his quaint and sweet essays, and these essays gain 
new charm for us when we know his brave, pathetic 
life. Lamb was a schoolmate of Coleridge at the 
famous Bluecoat School. A tragedy threw its shadow 
oi~er him when he was young ; his sister Mary, a 
spirit hardly less rare than his own, killed her mother 
in a fit of insanity. Charles devoted his life to this Life, 
sister, whose days were clouded by recurrent attacks 
of the malady. They were never rich. Lamb, for 
thirty- one years a clerk in India House, passed his 
days in bondage and controlled only his evenings. 
Still, this brother and sister were not unhappy. 
They both had active minds and keen powers of 
enjoyment, they were endeared to a large circle of 
friends, and they had the deep comfort of serene, 
unassuming, religious faith. Lamb found his de- 
lights, perforce, not, like the great poets his comrades, 
in nature or in travel, but in the world of books and Work, 
men. These delights he has recorded for us in a 
fascinating way in his "Essays of Elia," and in the mund " 
fine introductions to his " Selections from the Drama- 



452 



MODERN ENGLAND 



"John 

Woodvil," 

1801. 

"Mr. H.," 
1807. 

"Tales 
from 
Shake- 
speare," 
1807. 

" Speci- 
mens 
from the 
Dramatic 
Poets," 
1808. 



of Elia," 
1822, 1824, 
1833. 



William 
Hazlitt, 
1778-1830. 



Leigh 
Hunt, 
1784-1859. 



Thomas 
De 

Quincey, 
1785-1859. 



tists." Lamb was steeped in the Elizabethan drama, 
and in the essayists of the seventeenth century, and 
his writings are a joy to the cultivated ear, partly 
because, with all their individuality, they are vocal 
with echoes of past delights. The pleasurableness 
of the literature of our latter days is largely due, 
often, to its power of quickening associations, as the 
fresh singing of a young girl sometimes makes her 
hearers start in response to the tones of her mother. 

Lamb wrote, besides his essays, a little tale, u Rosa- 
mund Gray," and two dramas, a comedy, "Mr. H.," 
and a tragedy, "John Woodvil." With his sister, 
he wrote the " Tales from Shakespeare," which have 
become a classic in their way. He died in 1834, sur- 
viving by only a few months Coleridge, whose friend- 
ship had formed the romance of his life. 

William Hazlitt was a vigorous critic of the day. 
We remember him best because, with Lamb and 
Coleridge, he helped to revive intelligent enthusiasm 
for Shakespeare. Leigh Hunt, friend of Shelley and 
Keats, and editor of a literary periodical, the Exam- 
iner, was a pleasant essayist of good literary tastes, 
though a little too much inclined to sweets. But 
we pass rapidly on to two more important names : 
Thomas De Quincey and Walter Savage Landor. 
In Landor and De Quincey we find again the con- 
stantly recurrent expression of the two forces that 
are always striving for control in literature and art : 
classicism and romanticism. 

Thomas De Quincey was born in 1785. He was 
a precocious and dreamy boy, master of Greek at 
fifteen, an enthusiast in the accumulation of all kinds 
of knowledge. At his University, Oxford, he spent 



PROSE TILL 1830 



453 



several years of recluse life. He had a romantic 
devotion for Wordsworth, and settled for a time in 
the Lake country, to be near his idol. He spent his 
later life in or near Edinburgh. Unfortunately, for 
himself, but fortunately, perhaps, for English litera- 
ture, he fell under the influence of the opium habit, 
and his most remarkable work, " The Confessions of 
an Opium-Eater," is a kind of autobiography telling 
the extraordinary experiences of his disease. His 
writings were all in the form of contributions to 
periodicals ; some of them are called " Suspiria de 
Profundis," "Murder as One of the Fine Arts," "The 
Flight of a Tartar Tribe." 

As might be inferred from these titles, De Quincey's 
work shows the strength and the weakness of roman- 
ticism carried to an extreme. The thrill of the un- 
usual is the chief impression that it gives. It recalls 
the work of our American Poe. He loved to impart 
to prose harmonious cadences hitherto undreamed of, 
and to fill the mind with strange images of beauty, 
mystery, or terror. A series of majestic visions 
passes before the inner sight as we read the record 
of his opium dreams. But although the power of 
De Quincey's prose is unquestioned, it is a bad 
model. His style is frequently extravagant and over- 
wrought, his very stateliness is so self-conscious that 
it wearies, and he too often confuses the imaginative 
with the fantastic. 

The style of Walter Savage Landor, on the other waiter 
hand, was one of chiselled purity. Landor was a Landor, 
Greek born out of his due time. His very passion 1775 ~ 18(i 
for liberty was of the classic rather than of the revo- 
lutionary stamp. Few modern men care much about 



454 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Poems, 
1795. 

" Gebir," 
1798. 

" Count 
Julian," 
1812. 

" Imagi- 
nary 

Conversa- 
tions," 
1824-1853. 

" Pericles 
and As- 
pasia," 
1836. 

" Pentam- 

eron," 

1837. 

"Last 
Fruit off 
an old 
Tree." 
1853. 



a belated Greek, and Landor will never be popular. 
But lie has had a strong and abiding influence on 
other literary artists ; and to certain readers, his 
" Imaginary Conversations," his " Pericles and 
Aspasia," will always offer a place wherein to take 
refuge with eternal beauty and calm wisdom. Lan- 
dor showed as strong an historical sense as Scott, but 
in a different way. In his " Imaginary Conversa- 
tions " he would sketch a dramatic setting briefly, 
sometimes exquisitely, and then he would set the 
people of the past to talking about things that inter- 
ested him, and that might have interested them. 
There is a cool, high intellectual power about these 
dialogues ; there is at times a rare felicity of style, 
alluring from its very reserve. 

Landor wrote verse also ; a blank verse poem, 
" Gebir," a drama, " Count Julian," and certain lyrics. 
His verse is lofty, pure, reserved, like his prose. 
Rarely competent to move, it has yet at times a pathos 
enhanced by its dignity. "We may sum up Landor's 
life as he saw it, in his own words : — 

" I strove with none, for none was worth my strife ; 
Nature I loved, and next to nature, art. 
I warmed both hands before the fire of life ; 
It sinks, and I am ready to depart." 



He lived fourteen years after he wrote these noble 
lines, and died, eighty-nine years old, in Florence. 
It is curious to know that the author of books so 
severe and serene was a very choleric man. Legends 
of his peculiarities of temper and disposition still 
linger. His life is interesting, not only for itself, but 
for his many literary connections; he is a link be- 



PROSE TILL 1830 



455 



tween the generation of Southey, who was the friend 
of his youth, and the generation of Browning, who 
tended the lionlike old man with the devotion of a 
son in his lonely and troubled old age. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Life of Scott, by Lockhart ; by Hutton. Essay on Scott, 
Leslie Stephen. Scott's Journal. Ruskin, in Fors Clavi- 
gera, has charming fragments of a biography of Scott. Life of 
Jane Austen, Goldwin Smith (Great Writers Series). Life of 
Lamb, Ainger (English Men of Letters). Page, Life and 
Writings of De Quincey. Essay on De Quincey, Leslie 
Stephen. Landor, Selections, by Sidney Colvin, with excel- 
lent introduction (Golden Treasury Series). Selections, Athe- 
naeum Press Series. Life, Sidney Colvin. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

Scott's poems, especially " Marmion " and the " Lady of the 
Lake," form admirable preparation for the greater romantic 
work of his contemporaries. Study of the novel as an art 
form may be begun with Scott better than with any other 
novelist, for his art is at once sound and obvious, a rare com- 
bination. Plot development, character presentation, dramatic 
contrast, etc., can be missed in his work by no one who looks 
for them. Jane Austen may well be studied immediately after 
Scott, to point a contrast. 

It is a pity to analyze Charles Lamb. The influence of 
seventeenth-century prose upon the style should, however, be 
carefully noted. Landor and De Quincey may well be read to- 
gether, in short extracts, for the sake of contrast. Reading of a 
few selected early reviews is profitable as a warning against 
critical blunders, and a point of departure from which the 
evolution of modern criticism can be traced. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

The Personality of Scott ; of Charles Lamb ; Early Modern 
Criticism, its Strength and its Weakness ; the Classical and the 
Romantic in Prose Style ; The Art of Jane Austen. 



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CHAPTER V 



CONDITIONS OF VICTORIAN LITERATURE 
FTER the short but great literary period which 



followed the revolutionary upheaval, England 
fell once more for a brief time into silence. Once 
more it seemed as if all the stories had been told 
and all the songs sung, as if the last inspiration had 
worn itself out. And then once more the spiritual 
force in the nation rose and pressed forth through 
new channels, prepared for it by new conditions. 
We have reached the period which has only just 
closed. We are so near to it that many of the forces 
which controlled it are yet imperfectly understood. 
But of one thing at least we may be fairly sure : 
life grows richer as it goes on, not poorer, and there 
was never a period when that beautiful utterance of 
life which we call literature had more vitality, vari- 
ety, and expressiveness than during the last seventy 
years of the nineteenth century. 

The conditions under which Victorian literature 
expanded were so complex that we feel timid in 
attempting to describe them ; yet a few stand out 
so clearly that they must at least be suggested. 




I. The Forces at Work 



First, we all recognize, of course, man's conquest 
of material forces. This conquest seemed accom- 

459 



460 



MODERN ENGLAND 



plished in the Renaissance, when men discovered the 
shape and size of this earth, and its relation to the 
starry universe ; and we all know how these discov- 
Appiied eries quickened the imagination. But they were no 
science. more startling than the discoveries made in our time, 
which have brought already under human control 
such forces as steam and electricity. We do not yet 
begin to know all that this new dominion of ours 
is to mean. But already it has given the earnest, 
though not the fulfilment, of the partial release of 
humanity from the heavy burden of material labor, 
and it has bound the nations into one and enabled 
us to evade, even more swiftly than Shakespeare's 
Ariel could do, the harsh tyranny of space. Peoples 
no longer live in remote isolation each from each; 
they share from day to day their daily life. Rail- 
roads, telegraphs, telephones, and the rest are not in 
themselves ends in which we can glory, and it is a 
mistake so to regard them ; but they are means for 
the conquest of the world of matter by the world 
of mind, and they quicken and liberate the imagina- 
tion. 

But the triumph of mind over the material world 
achieved by natural science, sinks into insignificance 
beside the transformation of the world of thought by 
scientific theory. It was in 1859 that Darwin's " Ori- 
gin of Species," probably the most epoch-making book 
of the modern world, was published. From this 
time on and even earlier, the great principle of evo- 
lution began to make its way. Slowly men realized 
that the knowledge of this principle brought a new 
revelation of the method and significance of natural 
law, and of the past history of the visible world ; 



VICTORIAN LITERATURE 



461 



more slowly yet they became aware that it had pro- 
found, almost revolutionary significance in almost 
every sphere of thought. The infusion of evolu- 
tionary method and evolutionary conceptions into 
religion, ethics, sociology, criticism, was the chief 
intellectual achievement of the nineteenth century. 
As a mere theory of process and relations in the 
natural world, evolution would not concern us here : 
as a principle of interpretation applied more and 
more in every department of human activity, it has 
pervaded and profoundly modified our literature. 

The social situation, in the presence of which The social 
modern authors have written, has been one of absorb- ment. 
ing and dramatic interest. We saw how profoundly 
Europe was stirred at the end of the eighteenth cen- 
tury by the new cry for brotherhood and freedom ; 
we saw how, despite the unconquerable idealism of 
the poets, society succumbed to a conservative reac- 
tion. There was little democratic passion or hope 
stirring in English hearts when Victoria came to 
the throne. Yet an ideal, once seen by the race, 
never quite vanishes. Democracy during the nine- 
teenth century has advanced, often by ways un- 
dreamed of. But it has met with serious checks 
and unforeseen dangers. The aristocracy of birth has 
been growing gradually weaker over Europe ; our 
great American civilization has been built up with- 
out it. But a new aristocracy threatens us, even 
worse, because more ignobly devoid of appeal to the 
imagination, — the aristocracy of money. Again, 
the revolutionary leaders trusted that freedom and 
joy were close at hand for the great company of the 
poor and the unprivileged, but modern life has 



462 



MODERN ENGLAND 



seemed to consign the poor to a new bondage. 
While the middle classes have risen to prosperity 
and power, the working classes have remained in 
material and spiritual need. Political freedom has 
as yet availed them little. At the end of the eigh- 
teenth century an industrial revolution as important 
as the political, though less noted at the time, substi- 
tuted machine labor for hand labor. Putting the 
machines in the hands of the employing class, this 
revolution threw the laboring people, by whose daily 
work society subsists, into a sharply defined class by 
themselves, and into conditions in some ways pecu- 
liarly painful and degrading. All these things 
modern literature has noted. The cry of the toilers 
makes itself ever more clearly heard through our 
noblest books. Our authors have turned from 
visions like Shelley's to observation and experi- 
ment ; they have believed in evolution rather than 
in revolution. Hope of a nobler social order has at 
times seemed far away, but it has never died. Social 
study and social passion are among the most dis- 
tinctive features of Victorian literature, especially of 
Victorian prose. 
The re- The period of experiment on which men entered 
move? a ^ ^ ne en( ^ °^ ^e eighteenth century did not confine 
ment. itself to social matters ; it invaded the religious 
world also. People were driven to question their 
relations to God as well as their relations to their 
fellow-men. The authority of the Church was as 
much weakened as that of the old idea of the State. 
Unfortunately, during the searching experience of 
the Revolution, the Christian Church had sided with 
the party of privilege and wealth rather than with 



VICTORIAN LITERATURE 463 



the people, or with the cause o£ freedom ; and this 
choice of hers had sadly loosened her hold, not only 
on the working classes, but on many of the pure 
spirits who made a religion of humanity. We can 
not wonder that the Church chose in this way, when 
we remember the condition of Christianity in the 
eighteenth century; but all Christian people must 
regret it, for the effect of this false step is still felt 
to-day. Many other reasons weakened the hold of 
historic creeds ; and the nineteenth century, in every 
European country, has been a time of doubt and of 
spiritual striving. Perhaps on this very account it 
has been a time of intense spiritual earnestness. 
"The torpor of assurance," to use a phrase of 
Browning's, has been well shaken from our creed. 
A little after the middle of the century came the 
great expansion due to the introduction of evolu- 
tionary theory. This theory affected religious con- 
ceptions very powerfully, strengthening at first the 
forces that made for denial and scepticism, and later 
transforming many of the outlying and more mechan- 
ical modes of religious thought. All this ferment of 
religious inquiry, this exultant pleasure in escape 
from narrow dogma, this lament for dead faith, this 
joy in faith reconquered, all the phases of profound 
interest in the life of the soul which characterize 
modern life, are expressed in Victorian literature, 
especially in Victorian poetry. 

Many other forces have of course found expression The ses- 
in modern literature. The nineteenth century knew ^ e c . 
a great movement toward beauty, which poets and ment - 
prose writers did as much as artists to foster; it 
knew a quickened desire to penetrate the secrets of 



464 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Nature with loving heart and mind. These things 
and others we shall watch as we come to read the 
authors who have interpreted for us the last stages 
of that great story which we have followed from the 
beginning — the story of the imaginative life of the 
English race as shown in English letters. 



II. The Decade of Origins 

a back- It is rather arbitrary to call a literary period by 
glance. the name of a sovereign, but the last period of our 
English literature does almost exactly coincide with 
the reign of Victoria although it begins a few years 
before she ascended the throne. It is strange to see 
how many of the great men of the revolutionary 
period had been swept away before her accession. 
Keats, Shelley, Byron, had all died, in the inverse 
order of their ages, before 1825. Another decade, 
and the older men, Hazlitt, Scott, Coleridge, and 
Lamb, were hushed, while Wordsworth's work as a 
poet, though not as a man, was practically over. 
The silent air waited for new voices, and in the ten 
years between 1830 and 1840 new voices made them- 
selves heard. 

Social and This is one of the most significant and interesting 
sfgmfi- US decades in our literary history : a birth-decade, in 
which we see the first appearance of the two great 
forces that, as we have said, stand out as most com- 
pelling in the confusion of modern life : the force of 
social unrest, the force of religious inquiry. At the 
beginning, the movement culminating in the Reform 
Bill definitely placed political power in the hands of 
the middle class : at the end we are confronted with 



cance. 



VICTORIAN LITERATURE 



465 



Chartism, the first effort, significant if feeble, at self- 
assertion on the part of the working class. Reli- 
giously, this was the period of that strong spiritual 
movement, led by J ohn Henry Newman and his col- 
leagues, which stirred England to the depths, with its 
appeal for a return to strict self-renunciation and to 
the faith and practice of the primitive Church. Un- 
der the inspiration of John Stuart Mill and his fel- 
lows a strong sceptical movement was also gathering 
force, after its fashion as true a witness to moral ear- 
nestness as the Catholic revival ; and at the same 
time men of the type of Frederick Denison Maurice, 
formed by the influence of Coleridge, were begin- 
ning to feel their way toward a Christianity which 
should be the home at once of faith and of freedom. 

The first books of Tennyson and of Browning were First ap- 
published in this decade ; with these, Victorian poetry P^ arance 
began. Victorian essay opened significantly with Browning 
Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus," — the book which more 5hack nS ' 
than any other one struck the key-note of the new eray, 
age, — and with such of the " Tracts for the Times " Newman, 
as were written by Newman and Pusey. It is worth 
while to remember one special year, 1833, for Tenny- 
son's first poems of importance, Browning's earliest 
poem, " Pauline," the first of the " Tracts for the 
Times," and " Sartor Resartus," were in this year all 
given to the world. One short year later, and Vic- 
torian fiction gave promise, in Dickens's " Sketches 
by Boz," of its long and brilliant career, and the 
"Pickwick Papers" in 1836, and "Oliver Twist" in 
1837, showed that the career was fairly begun ; in 
1837 the great name of Thackeray, whom we couple 
with Dickens as we couple Browning with Tenny- 
son, appears with the " Yellowplush Papers." 



466 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Difficul- 
ties of 
judgment 
in modern 
literature. 



Victorian fiction, Victorian essay, Victorian poetry, 
then are well on their way before this decade has closed. 
We shall stndy these three in successive chapters. 
Which has been the greatest it is difficult to say. Re- 
membering the copiousness, flexibility, and power of 
modern prose, the expressiveness of our novels, the 
force and beauty of our essays, we are ready to ex- 
claim that prose is the characteristic art form of 
modern life ; but the words hesitate on our lips, as 
the incommunicable grace of a lyric from Tennyson, 
the imagery of a sonnet from Rossetti, some poig- 
nant phrase from Browning, or some haunting mel- 
ody from Swinburne, float reproachfully through the 
mind. The truth would seem to be that at last the 
two great instruments of literary expression are 
equally mature, and that they hold their own in har- 
monious and balanced power. Assuredly there seems 
to be need of both of them, adequately to render the 
eager and varied life of the Victorian age. 

It is well for us to remember, as we approach this 
literature, so full of special interest to us, the caution 
of Matthew Arnold. He warns us that there are 
three possible estimates of literature : the historic, 
the personal, and the real. Of these the real be- 
comes more and more difficult to obtain as we come 
near to our own days, the historic and the personal 
become more alluring. We can learn to know the 
movement of life in the times just preceding our 
own better through the study of Victorian literature 
than in any other way. We can also find personal 
friends who will help us in the inner life of mind 
and soul, more readily perhaps among modern authors 
than among any others. Both these things it is right 



VICTORIAN LITERATURE 



467 



and well for us to do ; only we must not confuse 
proportions, and we must avoid dogmatism. It is 
unwise to make assertions about the absolute and 
permanent value of modern books. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Traill, Social England, Vol. VI. Saintsbury, History of 
Xineteeth-century Literature. Gosse, Modern English Litera- 
ture. Justin McCarthy, History of Our Own Times. Dow- 
den, Studies in Literature ; The Scientific Movement and 
Literature; Transcripts and Studies, Victorian Literature. 
Frederic Harrison, Victorian Literature. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

It would be helpful if the services of other departments 
could be engaged at this point for one or two general talks 
on the Political and Social History of the Victorian Age, the 
Scientific Movement and its Reaction on Literature, the Modern 
Artistic Movement and its Relations to Literature, the Oxford 
Movement in its Literary Connections. 



CHAPTER VI 



VICTORIAN FICTION 



Realism of /^iNE of the best ways to understand modern Eng- 
i!tera- ian land is to read the great Victorian novels ; for 

ture - the novel, in these latter days, has pressed nearer 
and nearer to life. We have had, it is true, some 
strong writers of romance ; but on the whole the fic- 
tion of the great masters has reverted to the realistic 
tradition of the eighteenth century. Realism in art 
is sure to be the cry of an age possessed like ours 
with the desire for knowledge of all kinds, in particu- 
lar for self-knowledge ; and the novel, though it has 
some conventions, lends itself to realism more easily 
than does any other art form. 

Curiously enough, it is the very hardest thing for 
art to do, to show life exactly as it is. Art must 
move toward realism as far as it can, the farther the 
better, — so long as it does not quite arrive. As soon 
as it wholly arrived it would cease to be art. We 
can watch this gradual penetration into reality in a 
very interesting way through Victorian fiction. 



I. Chahles Dickens 

1812-1870. Dickens is the first revealer of modern life in fic- 
tion ; and what a revelation it is ! His realism is of 
just the type that we should expect early in a liter- 
ary development, for it is realism of sight. No other 

468 



VICTORIAN FICTION 



469 



mg. 



English novelist has had such power to make us see 
the world he watched. Analyze a chapter of Dickens, 
and note how largely it is made up of visual images. His real- ^ 
The great presence of London is around us as we 
read him ; we tread its streets, watch its darkly flow- 
ing river, penetrate its foulest haunts. Or, we are 
in the fresh country, and the old life of the inn and 
the coach slips gayly along before our inner eyes. 
People, too, throng upon our vision : the plain, often 
the poor, people of the Victorian world. We see 
their clothes, we note their gestures ; we should 
know them anywhere. 

Dickens had the best sort of training to make his His train- 
imagination a mirror in this way. He never had any 
time to think about life ; he was too busy looking at 
it. His father (whom he sketched in Mr. Micawber) 
and his mother (whom he sketched in Mrs. Nickleby) 
seem to have been rather irresponsible about their 
offspring ; at least, when Mr. Dickens, who was a 
poor clerk in the Navy Office, fell into debt, his 
second son Charles, a sensitive little fellow eleven 
years old, was tossed into the mselstrom of London, 
there to fend for himself and pick up a living by 
pasting labels on blacking bottles in a big ware- 
house. He was a dreamy child; before this time 
he had fed his mind on the strong fiction of the 
eighteenth century, which he found in an attic. His 
experience in the warehouse he has described for us 
in "David Copperfield." It did not last long, and 
he was better taken care of afterward ; but his only 
university — and to develop his unique genius the 
best he could have had — was the London streets. 
We find him at fifteen in an attorney's office, a little 



470 



MODERN ENGLAND 



later a reporter, always haunting the theatre and 
intimate with the life of the stage, and picking up 
in all these experiences the material for his novels. 
His work. Fame came to him early. All England laughed 
over the " Pickwick Papers," published in monthly 

" Pickwick . 

Papers," instalments when he was twenty-four years old. 

They were a series of humorous character sketches, 
in the good old English tradition of very broad fun, 
but free from the coarseness which had disfigured 
the fun of the last century. It was enough to make 
the book immortal that here Sam Weller made his 
bow to the English public. The next year Dickens 
brought out in the same fashion his first real novel, 
"Oliver "Oliver Twist." This was a glaring melodrama, 
1837? 1 ' with an impossible plot, very little humor, and 
much bad pathos ; it showed how much false roman- 
ticism still clung to the author, but it contained 
descriptions of the life of London thieves and out- 
casts startling in vividness and truth. Melodrama 
and farce, with which Dickens thus introduced him- 
self to the public, continued to be the controlling 
"Nicholas types of his work. "Nicholas Nickleby" came next, 
Nickieby, rever ti n g to the type of Pickwick, but less farcical. 

It was a story of roving adventure, loosely strung 
together, bubbling over with delightful fun and sym- 
"Oid pathy. Then, for nearly thirty years, the fecund 
Shop/ ,lty genius of Dickens continued to pour forth books 
1840. that delighted the English public. They were all 
Chuzzie- novels of plot or of adventure, though sometimes he 
wit," 1843. com ki ne( ^ the two. Those in which adventure domi- 
^Chnst- na t es are f ar the best. Dickens never compassed 
1843 01 '" realism in plot, though he could construct a fairly 
ingenious melodrama ; the power of his work is in his 



VICTORIAN FICTIOX 



471 



gift of reproducing the aspect of life, and in his "Dombey 
irresistible humor. It is humor of the simplest, genial, i846. S ° n ' 
infectious, and we treasure it because it makes us for- "David 
get that life has any moral problems. No one can fieM/' 1 " 
think of problems while Mr. Micawber is making a 1850 ' 
speech. Dickens was supposed in his own day to be House," 
master of the pathetic also, but his pathos is usually 18o2> 
of the self-conscious kind started by Richardson, and Times," 
it rings a little false to-day. ^Little 

The best of these novels of adventure is " David Don-it," 
Copperfield " ; surely a book to live as long as kindly <<Tale of 
English folk still read their mother tongue. One Two 
great plot novel also Dickens wrote, which stands 1859. 
curiously apart from his other work. It is the "Our 
" Tale of Two Cities," a story of the French Revo- Friend," 
lution, conceived under the inspiration of Carlyle. 1864, 
The terror of the time gathers visibly before our 
eyes as we read. 

Dickens's highly nervous organization wore itself 
out early. He took to imitating himself in his later 
books ; they are often mannered, and the humor is Dickens's 
forced. He added to the strain of writing the ex- deatn - 
citement of lectures and public readings, in England 
and America, and he died when only fifty-eight 
years old. 

Dickens's strongest moral impulse is his compassion 
for the poor. He never discovered the world of 
manual workers, though he tried to treat it in 

His scope 

" Hard Times," but the whole world of lower trade and spirit, 
and poverty in London lives in his pages. Some- 
times the reformer spoils the artist, yet we love 
Dickens the better for his unfailing compassion 
toward suffering children in workhouses or streets, 



472 



MODERN ENGLAND 



toward prisoners, toward victims of the cruelty of 
man, and for his efforts to right abuses. Better than 
any special crusade, however, is his spirit of sympathy 
for all sorts and conditions of men, except indeed, 
for the very rich, whom he disliked too much to 
describe them well. Dickens has many crude and 
obvious faults. He lacks the psychological insight 
of later novelists ; he has no spiritual vision ; he cari- 
catures and distorts till we feel in reading him that 
we are looking at life indeed, but at life reflected as 
it were in a convex mirror. But it is impossible to 
live with Dickens and not feel our sympathy for our 
fellow-men quickened and broadened. What better 
thing can a novelist do for us ? 



II. William Makepeace Thackeray 

18U-1863. Thackeray took English fiction into precisely the 
regions which Dickens could not enter. He had 
just the sort of antecedents and training to make 
this possible for him. He was a gentleman born. 
His mother married for her second husband an 
Anglo-Indian officer said to be the original of 

His train- Colonel Newcome. Thackeray was sent home from 
India to be educated, and studied at the famous 
Charter House school, and then at Cambridge Uni- 
versity. He had Bohemian tastes, however, and 
drifted to Paris, where he studied art for a while. 
It is interesting that Dickens's leaning, apart from 
literature, was toward the stage, Thackeray's toward 
art. , He saw more or less of various phases of Euro- 
pean life, an opportunity never given to Dickens, 
most useful to a novelist of society. 



VICTORIAN FICTION 



473 



Thackeray was a kindly, shy, immensely clever 

man. He began to write when still very young, but His work, 
he did not win fame early, like Dickens, though his 
lovers to-day delight in every word of his early 
humorous sketches. He was thirty-six when his 

first great novel, "Vanity Fair," was published. p^° ity 

This was a story of English society at the time of 1847. 
the battle of Waterloo; it centres in the amazing 
figure of Becky Sharp, the adventuress, who passes 
through all social grades like a rocket, and then falls 
like a rocket into the mire. The next great novel 

was " Pendennis," in 1850 ; this dealt with strictly ^ p ®??®£; 

7 ' J nis," 1850. 

contemporary life. In 1852 came Thackeray's novel < <Henry 

of the eighteenth century, "Henry Esmond"; it is Esmond," 

considered by many the best historical novel in Eng- <<The 

lish. In 1854 " The Newcomes " gave a picture of New- 

comGS 

modern life, sweeter in tone than any Thackeray had 1854. 

before presented, though very sad. " The Virgin- « The Vir- 

ians," another historical novel, is inferior to " Es- fs57 ans ' 

mond," and Thackeray is not at his best in his other « Philip," 

long finished novel, "Philip." 1861, 

Thackeray wrote lectures as well as novels ; in par- 
ticular, "The English Humourists " and "The Four " English 
. Humour- 
Georges, dealing with that eighteenth century ists,"i853. 

which he knew and loved so well. His private life ''The Four 

. Georges, 

was clouded with sorrow. His one longing was for i860, 
simple domestic tenderness, and his wife, early in 
their marriage, became insane. He was a lonely 
man, but cheered by the love of friends and later 
of his daughters. He lectured in England and in 
our own country, though not so much as Dickens. 

His life was really in his books, which were wonder- J^g" 

fully real to him. In 1863 he died. death 



474 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Thackeray's plots are not so much in evidence as 
Dickens's, and it is almost possible to read him with- 
out realizing that his books have any plot at all. 
Yet when we come to think we shall see that in 
some, at least, of his books, as "Vanity Fair" and 
u Henry Esmond," he tells his story in the main very 
well, though he sometimes loses sight of proportions 
and has to crowd it at the end. But Thackeray's 
His art. ar t is always unobtrusive. The same thing is em- 
phatically true of his style. It is a delightful style, 
quite different from that of Dickens, and far more 
charming. His books seem to slip along with the 
ease and sparkle of well-bred conversation, but their 
apparent simplicity is really the highest art, as any 
one will see who tries to write like them. Thackeray 
pauses a great deal in his narrative for discursive 
comment, and this habit of his might be tedious were 
his style not so perfect ; as it is, his digressions are 
a great charm. Prose has never had a truer, a more 
legitimate, melody of movement than he imparted 
to it. 

It is fortunate that he has a more subtle style 
than Dickens, for he had to describe more subtle 
people. Dickens begins with the inhabitants of 
the city slums, and moves easily among poor and 
simple folk till he reaches the merchant class; his 
studies are never successful when he goes higher. 
But Thackeray moves upward, quite out of the 
His social world of trade, among the intellectual and profes- 
pictures. s ^ ona ]^ classes, and the aristocracy. He does not 
visualize his world as Dickens does ; he notes less 
the outward aspect of men, than their manners, their 
interests, their relations. He sees the mind, and 



VICTORIAN FICTION 



475 



shows us the play of motives in it, conscious and 
unconscious. 

It is not a very cheerful picture that he gives us. 
Dickens's unthinking classes are sound and kindly 
at heart, though they live on a level not so very 
much above the animal. But Thackeray's polished 
and educated people are usually worldly through and 
through. They have learned how to make, exter- 
nally, a fine art of life, but they are heartless under- 
neath. We cannot help feeling that the society 
which Thackeray describes is almost hopelessly 
materialized. Money is of paramount importance 
in it. His people are consumed by that sort of per- 
sonal ambition which has free play under our modern 
conditions, where men are no longer born into classes 
in which they have to stay, but can make their way, 
if they are clever enough, from class to class. A 
spirit of pushing unrest pervades Thackeray's world. 

No one reverences simple goodness, innocence, rec- His 
titude, more than Thackeray does ; no one describes ann 
them with more winning penetration and sympathy. 
But he does not see them very often. He can draw 
a noble hero, to be sure, which Dickens never could 
do ; a Dobbin, a Henry Esmond, and, dearest of all, 
the old soldier with the heart of a child, Colonel 
Newcome. But unluckily most of the good people 
in his books are a little dull. This is not true of 
Henry Esmond, his hero of the eighteenth century, 
but it is true of the characters in his other books. 
His good people live apart from the rush and push 
of life ; they never enter Vanity Fair at all, far less 
do they dwell there, as some of Bunyan's pilgrims 
do, and try to help the inhabitants of the place. No, 



476 



MODERN ENGLAND 



no, Thackeray seems to say, do not draw near to that 
Fair. It is a fascinating place, to be sure ; all the 
wit of the world is there, and the intelligence, and 
the interest and the charm ; but if you enter it you 
are lost. Better stay outside and be a little stupid 
if necessary, but keep your heart fresh. 

One reason why Thackeray shows us so few ideals 
is that, even more than Dickens, he reflects the ten- 
dency of our democratic times to fasten attention on 
the average. Shakespeare and his compeers sought 
the ideal and the heroic. Thackeray and his fellows 
deliberately took life as they found it ; and they 
lived at a time when idealism in society was at low 
ebb. If we were to infer the interests, occupations, 
and aims of society at the early Victorian period 
from the novels of the time, we should certainly be 
a little discouraged. It is true, as a keen critic has 
recently said, that we suffer in reading Thackeray's 
works from an absence of noble expectation. 

Yet it would be a great mistake to call Thackeray 
a cynic, as has sometimes been done. He certainly 
does not inspire his readers with a militant desire to 
conquer evil ; his tone is half playful, half melancholy, 
a little fatalistic. Nor do his books make for definite 
reforms like those of Dickens. But he develops a 
fastidious disgust for hypocrisy and materialism, and 
a delicate taste for all things sweet and pure. His 
keen humor always casts ridicule in the right place. 
His pathos is true and profound, never to be for- 
gotten ; springing, not like that of Dickens from 
material accidents, like the death of children or the 
sufferings of the feeble-minded, but from deeper 
sources. And in " Henry Esmond," where he 



VICTORIAN FICTION 



477 



escapes from the depressing atmosphere of the mod- 
ern world, he gives us a picture of life, not idealized 
nor sentimentalized, but full of attraction. 

III. Mary Anne Evans (George Eliot) 

We turn to George Eliot, the only novelist of 1820-188I. 
modern England who can to-day claim a fairly 
assured place beside Thackeray and Dickens. We 
have seen how sweeping were the views of life which 
these earlier writers gave us. Their works are a Realism of 

, n -1 • 1 ^th " the inner 

great panorama of modern society. I heir canvases iif e . 
are crowded by figures, — in one of Dickens's novels 
there are seventy-five characters, in one of Thack- 
eray's over sixty ; they show us people, always in 
social groups, in varied relations with their fellow- 
men. Of that large part of life which is lived in 
solitude they tell us little. But modern realism was 
to press nearer to the individual heart and conscience, 
to the hidden places of experience, than these great 
masters had done. 

Mary Anne, or Marian, Evans, better known by Her life, 
her pen name, was the daughter of a carpenter who 
afterward became land agent ; she was born in 
Warwickshire, the beautiful county of Shakespeare. 
She did not know city life in her childhood as Thack- 
eray and Dickens did ; she grew up in the sweet, 
rural, old-fashioned England which was to furnish 
subjects and setting for her earlier books. 

As a little girl, the strongest fact in her life was 
her intense devotion to her brother ; she has told us 
about it in a pretty series of sonnets, "Brother and 
Sister." Her affections were always profound. Her 



478 



MODERN ENGLAND 



mother died while she was very young, and a little 
school life and solitary years of keeping house for 
her father made up her girlhood. She was fervently 
evangelical at this time, and had serious scruples 
about reading novels. But when she was twenty- 
two years old her father and she moved to Coven- 
try ; here she became intimate with some clever 
people of radical views, and slipped with remarkable 
ease away from her early faith. She never regained 
it ; but the problems of the ethical life continued 
always to be the most important things in the world 
to her. She translated at this time a famous radi- 
cal German book, Strauss's "Life of Jesus." Her 
change of faith was a great grief to her father, but 
the two became reconciled, and she cared tenderly for 
his last years. 

After her father's death, Miss Evans spent a winter 
in Geneva, for rest, and returned to London as an 
editor of the Westminster Review, the Liberal organ. 
This was an honorable position for a woman; she 
must already have made her mark as a person of in- 
tellect. In London she met the most interesting 
people of the time; not the people of Dickens's 
world, nor of Thackeray's, but the leaders of thought 
and art. She formed two relations which proved 
most significant to her. One was a close friendship 
with Herbert Spencer, the philosopher of the new 
school of evolutionary thought. George Eliot be- 
came an ardent evolutionist, and eagerly attempted 
during all the rest of her life to apply evolutionary 
principles to the moral life of the race. The other 
relation was with George Henry Lewes, a brilliant 
man of letters, author, among other things, of the 



VICTORIAN FICTION 



479 



standard life of Goethe. She defied the laws of mar- 
riage to unite her fortunes to those of Lewes ; and 
she now knew happiness for the first time, though 
not an unmixed happiness. They studied, thought, 
and travelled together. It was a shock and surprise 
to her friends when after his death, in 1878, she mar- 
ried a young man, much her junior, J. W. Cross. 
But she was happy for a few months in this second 
union. She died, however, very soon. 

Till she was thirty-seven years old George Eliot 
showed no sign of creative power. It was Lewes's 
ardent belief in her that first called this power out. 
Very timidly she wrote her first stories, "Scenes of Her work. 
Clerical Life," and sent them under the pseudonym "Scenes 
since so famous to BlacJctvood's Magazine. They Life,"i858. 
were accepted, and encouraged by their success 
she wrote her first novel, " Adam Bede," a story " Adam 
of rural England at the end of the previous century. 1859.' 
All the world, reading this book, knew that a great 
new novelist had appeared. Dickens was one of the 
first to divine that the book was written by a woman. 
Soon the veil was dropped, and George Eliot, with a 
tremulous sense of responsibility toward the gift so 
unexpectedly discovered, devoted her life to writing 
fiction. 

" The Mill on the Floss " held in the first and best "The Mill 

on the 

part charming reminiscences of her own eager child- Floss," 



I860. 
Silas 



hood, and was again a story of country life. " Silas 

Marner" is perhaps the most perfect idyl in English. Marner, 

"Romola" was a more ambitious book; it is George , ' . , 

& " Romola, 

Eliot's historical novel, and treats of the Florence of 1863. 

the Renaissance. " Felix Holt," her weakest novel, ''^VF 

' m ' Holt," 

is a story of the radical movement at the time of the 1866. 



480 



MODERN ENGLAND 



"Middle- 
march," 
1872. 

" Daniel 

Deronda," 

1876. 

"The 
Spanish 
Gypsy," 
1868. 

Her scope. 



Early 
books. 



Later 
books. 



Reform Bill. Then came the last great novels, 
" Micldlemarch " and " Daniel Deronda," both deal- 
ing with the modern English life of the upper class, 
but adding in " Daniel Deronda " a strong contrast in 
the careful study of the modern Jews. " The Spanish 
Gypsy," a drama in verse, and certain other poems, 
and a series of essays, " Impressions of Theophras- 
tus Such," complete George Eliot's literary output. 

Where Thackeray and Dickens study the phenom- 
ena of society, George Eliot studies those of the 
soul. Her early books treat, with no touch of melo- 
drama or satire, but with refreshing simplicity and 
insight, the great primal normal passions which shape 
the life of all men. Hardy has followed her in this 
rich field. Most people prefer these early books to 
the later ones, and they certainly have more charm. 
They are full of humor, of sympathy ; we escape 
from city streets and drawing-rooms to the fragrance 
of fertile lowlands, and the wide unfevered light of 
the sky. These books strengthen our sanity. " Adam 
Bede " in particular, though it tells a tragedy, is a 
story full of rest. Adam himself, probably the first 
workman hero in fiction, and Dinah Morris, that fair 
type of spiritual womanhood, enrich our life by their 
friendship. 

Rarely, however, does George Eliot show us a 
normal and peaceful society. Already, in "The 
Mill on the Floss," the modern forces of unrest 
have begun to stir, and the wistful, passionate figure 
of Maggie stands out in strange relief against the 
idyllic and humorous background. George Eliot 
in her later books moved farther and farther away 
from the life known to her childhood. In " Romola " 



VICTORIAN FICTION 



481 



the Florentine setting but slightly disguises the 
intellectual and spiritual conditions of modern Eng- 
land. " Middlemarch " and "Daniel Deronda" deal 
with the special moral strivings of thoughtful mod- 
ern men and women. Just on this account they will 
probably not live as long as the earlier books. 
Moreover, they have less free play of humor, less 
beauty of setting. But if we may surmise their real 
value to be less, their historic value at least is 
greater. Nowhere else have we an intellect in which 
creative and critical instincts are so finely balanced, 
showing us the experience of the modern world, just 
waking to self-consciousness. The society which 
George Eliot gives as her background is essentially 
the same as that pictured by her predecessors, but 
against it she delineates individuals whose minds and 
consciences are vibrating to new forces. 

The outcome in " Middlemarch " is melancholy. 
The best people in the book beat in vain against 
the conventions that surround them, and make fail- 
ures of their lives. " Daniel Deronda " is a far more 
cheering picture. Here George Eliot has done what 
modern fiction has rarely attempted, — drawn for us 
a true hero. Many think that she has failed, but the 
conception is well worth study. If we put it beside 
Sir Charles Grandison, we see that the ideal of hero- 
ism in England is rising again, though it is strangely 
different from what it was in the old days of Beowulf 
and Roland. George Eliot's hero, however, has at 
least discovered again that incentive for lack of which 
heroism perishes : some great aim to strive for. 

All these books of George Eliot's are full, not Her social 
only of observation, but of reflection. She had been phy.° s °" 



482 



MODERN ENGLAND 



trained as thinker and scholar before she began to 
write, and the results are clearly evident. Some 
think they enrich her work, some think they deaden 
it. She is possessed by a large conception of life as 
an organic whole, by a sense of the power and the 
consequent claim of heredity and environment. Her 
effort is to derive a religion from this philosophy ; 
to show how the ethical values of life may be main- 
tained, Christianity being tacitly put out of sight. 
Hers is the religion of humanity ; her books instil 
at every turn the truth that peace can only be won 
by renunciation, by yielding the claims of personal 
desire to the good of a larger whole. They are 
stern books and sad, when rightly read, but every- 
where noble. 



IV. Other Novelists 

Of the bewildering output of novels only less 
excellent than those which we have discussed, we 
have no time to speak. Had we more space, many 
an author would call for full treatment. We 
should dwell on Charlotte Bronte and her sister 
Emily, women whose fervid lonely passion burns 
through their troubling books ; on Anthony Trol- 
lope, a more copious and less brilliant Thackeray, 
novelist of manners, of political, domestic, and 
religious life; on Charles Reade, one of the best 
constructors of plots, and no mean delineator of 
character; on Charles Kingsley, most sympathetic 
of writers, author of many books, from fairy tales to 
historical novels, that have not yet lost the freshness 
of their charm nor their power to lift men into finer 



VICTORIAN FICTION 



483 



manhood; on George MacDonald, novelist of Scot- 
tish life, dowered with the spiritual insight and 
poetic imagination of the Celt; on the most recent 
of them all, loved so well that one would not 
characterize him, so near us that one could not if 
one would, that other Scotchman of heroic temper, 
Robert Louis Stevenson. Before he died he had Robert 
taken his place as master of a very perfect prose g° e ^| nson 
style, and his essays — individual and charming in 1850-1894. 
their own way as those of Lamb — are perhaps his 
most finished achievement. Stevenson was a leader 
in the modern romantic reaction, and gave promise 
of pressing into the front rank among novelists. His 
romanticism includes not only the simple and obvious 
novel of adventure, such as 44 Treasure Island," but a 
more subtle and psychologic type, as in " The Master 
of Ballantrae," and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." 

More significant, perhaps, than any one of these Thomas 
are Thomas Hardy and George Meredith. Hardy's islo- y ' 
books confine themselves to one small section of 
England, the ancient kingdom of Wessex : here he 
studies with rich humor, tragic intensity, and poetic 
feeling, the characteristics of a population rooted to 
the soil. He is the most pessimistic of English nov- 
elists. His impassioned love for the ancient earth, 
and for the sacred ties that bind man to it, are the 
only wholesome elements in a view of life limited, 
sombre, charged with pain. 

Meredith, on the other hand, takes us into the George 
most intellectual society presented by any Victorian i828- dlth ' 
novelist, a society where both men and women think 
keenly and talk almost too brilliantly. Not fearful 
of tragedy, as " Beauchamp's Career " and " Richard 



484 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Feverel " may witness, Meredith finds in comedy his 
most native sphere. His best and happiest people 
escape from convention on the one hand, and wilful 
self-assertion on the other, into harmonious relation 
to the larger facts of life. " Richard Feverel," 
Meredith's first great novel, was published in 1859, 
the same year as "Adam Bede." Like Browning, 
he waited long for his audience, but won it at last. 
His work is mannered and lacking in large simplic- 
ity ; but for those who can receive it, it is singularly 
invigorating. 

Both Meredith and Hardy are powerful in their 
delineation of life, but behind the delineation one 
feels theories and large questionings, such as are 
absent from Scott and Dickens. Steeped in evolu- 
tionary thought, the spirit of the age of search has 
descended upon them. But if the last word of 
Hardy is Fate, the last word of Meredith is a disci- 
plined freedom. 

Looking at Victorian fiction as a whole, we see in 
it an art-form that becomes constantly more expres- 
sive. It presents moreover a series of social docu- 
ments of the highest significance. All classes have 
been adequately studied in it except the working 
people, and they are to-day coming to the front more 
and more. We see in it a significant witness to the 
growing power of analysis and to the extension 
of human sympathy that mark our modern times. 
Whether we see also books that will hold their own 
among the permanent imaginative treasures of the 
race, it is impossible to say. Probably English fiction 
is inferior in artistic power and in the large grasp of 
human experience to the fiction of France and Russia. 



VICTORIAN FICTION 



485 



REFERENCE BOOKS 

Life of Dickens, Forster (3 vols.). Ward, English Men of 
Letters. Marzials, Great Writers Series. Life of Thackeray, 
Trollope, English Men of Letters. Introductions by Mrs. 
Ritchie to Biographical Edition. Life of George Eliot, 
W. Cross (told in extracts from her own letters), O. Browning 
(Great Writers Series). George Cooke, George Eliot : a Criti- 
cal Study. M. Blind, George Eliot. Essays on Thackeray and 
Dickens in Bagehot's Literary Studies, in Andrew Lang's 
Letters to Dead Authors, in Masson's British Novelists and 
their Styles. Essay on George Eliot, Dowden; Studies in 
Literature, Hutton, Modern Guides, etc. Sc udder, Social 
Ideals in English Letters, Part H, Chs. IV, V, VI. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

Dickens would best be approached through " A Tale of Two 
Cities" and "David Copperfield." The first offers fine oppor- 
tunities for studies of plot structure, the second for studies in 
character drawing. " Henry Esmond " and " The Newcomes " 
are the most desirable books from Thackeray for young stu- 
dents. It is interesting to treat Dickens and Thackeray in 
parallel, comparative work, placing side by side their social 
scope, their style, their methods in humor and pathos, their 
conception of heroism, etc. Drill in writing brief character 
studies ; special topics on child life, on the ideal for women, on 
the methods in description, etc., can be multiplied ad libitum. 

The best single novel of George Eliot's for beginners is " Silas 
Marner," though it illustrates only part of her powers. It shows, 
however, her delicate touch, her interest in regions of personality 
controlled by conscience, her sympathy with rural life, with child 
life, etc. " Romola," if added, affords varied material for study. 
Beside analysis of the book in itself, the story may instructively 
be put beside " A Tale of Two Cities " and " Henry Esmond." 
Show why our great Victorian novelists chose three so different 
fields for their three historical novels. Compare their choice 
with that of Scott, and explain why none of them returned, as 
he did, to the middle ages. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

Talks on the personality of the different novelists, and on 
their entire product, would be very valuable. 



CHAPTER VII 



VICTORIAN ESSAYISTS 

I. Thomas Babikgton Macaulay, 1800-1859 

WE can see from the writings of Thomas Bab- 
ington Macaulay just what life looked like 
to an honest Englishman of vigorous intellect in 
the pause between the revolutionary idealists and 
the Victorian seekers. Macaulay's career, personal, 
political, and literary, was most honorable. He 
served his country well. He was a Whig ; that is, 
he believed, guardedly, in a gradual advance toward 
constitutional freedom, and in liberty of thought. 
His ideal for society was a free field in which every 
man might push his way as far as he could. He 
was full of admiration for the material prosperity, 
the applied science, the intellectual enlightenment 
of his own day. That the next generation could 
be stirred to any deep discontent with things as they 
were, would have been inconceivable to him. 

An essay on Milton, published when Macaulay was 
only twenty-five years old, decided him on a literary 
career. He followed it by a series of powerful 
essays on political, literary and historical subjects, 
published in the Edinburgh Review. These seemed 
at the time the last word of criticism, and they are 
still good reading, from their clear common sense, 
their hearty and healthy interest in all sorts of sub- 

486 



VICTORIAN ESSAYISTS 



487 



jects, and their vigorous if somewhat mechanical 
style. Meanwhile, he was in the House of Commons 
for several years, and his speeches, which produced 
a great impression on those who heard them, are 
perhaps still his best work. There is no imagination 
in Macaulay's prose, nor in his spirited verse, " The 
Lays of Ancient Rome," but there is much fine 
rhetoric. 

His most important work is his " History of Eng- 
land," undertaken on his return from several years 
in India. It was planned to extend " from the acces- 
sion of James I to a time within the memory of 
men now living," but Macaulay did not live to com- 
plete the task beyond the death of William III. 
His ambition was to do for real history what Scott 
had done for imaginary history ; and he nearly real- 
ized it. His history is a sort of triumphant presen- 
tation of the gradual victory of liberal views, but he 
makes us see his period vividly, and holds our inter- 
est from first to last. The book inaugurated the 
literary histories of the Victorian age, the work of 
Froude, of Freeman, of Gardiner, of Green. 

Macaulay died in 1859. He had reaped his full 
harvest of appreciation in his lifetime. He is hardly 
a characteristic author of the Victorian age ; he 
belongs, as we have said, to the interregnum. 

II. Thomas Cablyle 

Thomas Carlyle, probably the greatest force in 1795-1881. 
English letters during the first half of the Victorian 
age, was five years older than Macaulay ; but he was 
the prophet of the next generation. It was given 



488 



MODERN ENGLAND 



him to lead men into a spiritual region far different 
from any that Macaulay ever entered. 
Parentage Carlyle, like Burns, was a Scotchman. He was 
and early ^crn in the little village of Ecclefechan, into a life 
like that described in " The Cotter's Saturday 
Night." His father was a mason ; Carlyle said, in 
later life, that if he could write his books as well 
as his father had built his houses, he should be 
wholly content. His mother was a rugged, igno- 
rant, deeply religious woman, who taught herself to 
write that she might write to her son, and whom 
that son all his long life loved more tenderly than 
he did any one else in the world. 

Like many poor Scottish lads, young Carlyle went 
to the University of Edinburgh ; he did much think- 
ing there, if little learning; passed through a profound 
spiritual experience of religious struggle and doubt, 
ending in hard-won faith of his own kind ; and 
found that his convictions would not allow him to 
fulfil his parents' desires by becoming a minister. He 
tried his hand therefore at teaching, at tutoring, at 
hackwork in literature ; fell under the spell of the 
romantic literature of Germany, translated " Wilhelm 
Meister" and wrote a "Life of Schiller"; and made 
his way into the Edinburgh Review with a series of 
remarkable, though little noted, critical essays. 
Meanwhile, he married a Scotch girl of genius hardly 
less than his own, J ane Baillie Welsh ; and, after a 
short time in Edinburgh, moved with his young wife 
to a property of hers called Craigenputtoch, on a 
lonely Scottish moor. There he brooded and searched 
his spirit, — cheered once by a visit, as out of the 
skies, from a young American named Ralph Waldo 



VICTORIAN ESSAYISTS 



489 



Emerson, — - till at last in that solitude the fire kin- 
dled, and Carlyle spake with his tongue. This first 
utterance was " Sartor Resartus," a strange book, 
semi-autobiographical, presenting with extraordinary 
eloquence, though in seeming medley, audacious 
thoughts concerning the religious and social condi- 
tions of the modern world. 

Carlyle was thirty-seven years old at this time. Work. 
Fame did not come to him easily or soon. He had 
served a hard apprenticeship of strife with doubt, 
poverty, and despair. And no wonder ; for thoughts 
belonging to a new order were seething in his mind. 
" Sartor " had to struggle for recognition, and it was « Sartor 
first published in book form in America. But slowly Jgf! XtUS ' 
the men of the rising generation found in it what 
they wanted, and made a kind of Bible of it. Car- 
lyle soon moved to London, and the history of his 
life became chiefly the history of his writings. The "The 
French Revolution seemed to him the most tremen- RevokL 
dous event in centuries ; a time of death and birth. JggJ'" 
In 1837 appeared his history of the time, a book 
which is still unique. His emotional imagination 
caught the vibrations of the great revolutionary 
drama which were still in the air, and he did not 
so much write a regular history as transmit to all 
posterity the images and the emotions that accom- 
panied those great years when democracy was born. 

" Past and Present " and " Latter Day Pamphlets " " Chart- 
continued the line of thought of " The French Revo- .. J 

° " Heroes 

lution," and applied it to modern life. Carlyle's andHero- 

Worship," 

sense of the social dangers of our time burns clear and 1841. 
hot through these prophetic books. His edition of " Past and 

Present " 

" Cromwell's Letters and Speeches," and his monu- 1843. 



490 



MODERN ENGLAND 



" Crom- 
well's 
Letters 
and 

Speeches,' 
1845. 

" Latter 
Day 
Pam- 
phlets," 
1850. 

"Life of 

Sterling," 

1851. 

" History 
of Fred- 
erick II," 
1858-1865. 

Carlyle's 

death, 

1881. 



Carlyle's 



mental " History of Frederick the Great," though 
they represent the indefatigable work of many weary 
years, are less full of true force and fire. A course of 
lectures on " Heroes and Hero Worship," embodying 
his favorite idea of the strong man as the saviour of 
the world, has proved one of his most popular works, 
and his life of his friend, John Sterling, is a tender 
biography. The old giant lingered till 1881, heart- 
broken during the later years by the death of his 
wife ; since his death, his copious letters and jour- 
nals, sometimes injudiciously edited, have given us 
a strangely complete knowledge of his character, a 
strong character, full of the best if also of certain 
less fine traits of the peasant. 

Carlyle was profoundly discontented with his own 
time. It seemed to him plunged in materialism or 
dilettanteism, denying God and oblivious of the suf- 
fering of men. The misery of the industrial classes, 
above all, filled him with a fierce rage ; not so much 
their physical misery, for poverty had few terrors for 
this hardy son of Scotch peasants, but the misery of 
their souls, deprived of their spiritual heritage. 
" That there should one man die ignorant who had 
capacity for knowledge," he cried, "this I call a 
tragedy, should it happen twenty times to the min- 
ute, as by some computations it does." 1 Social in- 
justice Carlyle traced back to religious unbelief. 
Himself far from the creed of his fathers, he, never- 
theless, worshipped with profound faith the right- 
eous law of the indwelling God. 

In his youth he tried to bring the age the message 
it needed by "Germanizing the public." Later he 
1 " Sartor Eesartus." 



VICTORIAN ESSAYISTS 



491 



turned from criticism to direct invective and appeal. 
In opposition to the prevalent utilitarianism, he dwelt 
awestruck on the Divine Mystery in all things. In a 
society where the freedom of each man to do as he 
liked was considered the highest possible ideal, he 
was never weary of preaching man's absolute need 
to find some heroes to govern him. He pleaded for 
truth, reality, escape from cant ; above all, he preached 
the gospel of work, till the shadows should fall. 

His perturbation, his scorn, his sorrow, his hope, g t y^ yle 
he poured forth in a style absolutely individual. It 
is a dangerous style to imitate, but in his hands 
it is full of power. Carlyle always thought in pic- 
tures. When he writes history, no one sets people 
and events before us so vividly as he does ; when he 
deals with ideas, his style is as full of pictures as 
ever, for he translates everything he wants to say 
into a metaphor. It is a style charged with emo- 
tion, — ironical, impassioned, eloquent. It is full of 
surprises ; but it makes the reader think for himself, 
and suggests far more than it says. It was much 
influenced by Carlyle's German studies, and it is in 
the fullest sense a romantic style. 

Carlyle was stronger in denunciation than in con- Carlyle 
struction. He could tell men their faults more readily signifi- 
than he could tell them what to do. That is because 
he was a pioneer, pushing his own way in much be- 
wilderment through shadowy paths. His power over 
the men of his day was largely due to the fact that 
he expressed the confusion of their own minds, yet 
clung firmly to eternal principles of truth and justice. 
He gives the impression of one who lives in the 
wilderness ; he is the John the Baptist of a new 



492 



MODERN ENGLAND 



era, lifting up his voice with the note of the fore- 
runner. 



III. John Henry Newman 

1801-1890. xhe voice of Carlyle reached those outside the 
Churches who had lost hold of the historic creeds, 
and gave them something to cling to still ; the voice 
of John Henry Newman drew men back within the 
fold of the Church of Christ. We cannot here 
speak of Newman's work as a theologian, of the pro- 
cess that led the leader of the Catholic revival in 
the Anglican Church to the Church of Rome, nor of 
his wonderful personality. We can note only, and 
that too briefly, his quality as a writer. No figure 
could be in stronger contrast with that of Carlyle 
than that of this other great spiritual guide, so 
nearly his contemporary and so one with him in 
aversion to the prevalent liberalism and individual- 
ism of the day. Despite his study at the University 
of Edinburgh, Carlyle was a self-made man. The 
strong personality of Newman had received all the 
flexible grace, the suavity, the keen logical power, 
which an academic life can impart. Newman's style 
is classical in its lucid ease, its subtlety and simplic- 
ity combined, its perfect melody and finish. It is 
perhaps the best model of any modern prose style. 
The rare persuasiveness, so impressive to his hearers, 
lingers in the printed page. It is impossible to 
Loss and read his autobiography, the " Apologia," his two 
novels, " Callista," and " Loss and Gain," his " Idea 
i852 UlSta ' °^ a University," his great sermons, or above all his 
one long poem, the " Dream of Gerontius," without 



Gain 
1848 



VICTORIAN ESSAYISTS 



493 



feeling his almost irresistible sway. This is clue "Apologia 
partly to his literary art, but far more to his keen suaji864. 
mind, and most of all to his stern, uplifted, holy I<T7 

' * ' j " Verses ou 

spirit. Carlyle was the exponent of the storm and q^° us 

stress of the nineteenth century ; Newman was a sions," 
man of the thirteenth century strayed, almost it 
might seem by mistake, into the modern world. 



IV. John Ruskin 

In John Ruskin we find again a man essentially I819-1900. 
the product of his age, and one of its noblest leaders. 
Ruskin was the greatest disciple of Carlyle ; but 
his early life and work were singularly different 
from those of his master. He was a son of privilege; 
he interpreted the beauty of nature and art to a 
delighted public till he was forty years old. Then a 
great change passed over his spirit, and for thirty 
years he sought to give his countrymen a fuller 
understanding of justice. It is a significant and 
dramatic career, — as if Spenser had suddenly turned 
into Wyclif, poet into reformer. Perhaps the two 
are not so far away from each other as people think. 

Ruskin was the only child of a rich wine-merchant. Parentage 
He grew up near London in a house with a big gar- life, 
den, in perfect security, solitude, and peace. The 
family took its pleasure in driving all over England 
and Scotland, and later France, Switzerland, and. 
Italy ; so Europe was his university. He received 
also a good academic education at Oxford, but this 
was of less importance to him. He was a singu- 
larly sensitive and chivalrous nature, and, when 
still hardly more than a boy, he took up his weapons 



494 



MODERN ENGLAND 



in behalf of a great neglected landscape painter, 
Turner. The work grew on his hands ; it became 
the first volume of " Modern Painters," The public 
received the book with enthusiasm ; Ruskin had 
found his vocation. In 1860 the fifth volume 
crowned a noble achievement. 
"Modern '"Modern Painters,' " said Ruskin in his old a^e, 

Painters 

1843-1860. " taught the claim of all lower nature on the hearts 
of men." He therefore put the interpretation of Na- 
ture first, as the most important achievement of the 
book ; but this was not its ostensible object. Two 

Work as other things it accomplished : it vindicated the land- 

critic of 

art. scape art of English painters, especially of Turner ; 

and it revealed to an indifferent world the power 
and beauty of the early religious art of Italy. 

These volumes do not represent all Ruskin's prod- 
uct between 1840 and 1860. He wrote during these 
years two other books of importance : " The Seven 

"Seven Lamps of Architecture," a treatise on the spiritual 

Lamps of 

Architec- and structural principles of Gothic art, and "The 
1849.' Stones of Venice," a history of the decline of Venice, 
''Stones of studied through the degeneration of her arts under 
1851-1853. the influence of the Renaissance. These books mark 
the culmination of that enthusiasm for the Gothic 
which springs from some deep region in the modern 
mind. It had begun, superficially, in the eighteenth 
century ; Scott had given it picturesque romantic 
expression ; the Oxford movement had consecrated 
it to ecclesiastical uses. Now Ruskin penetrated 
in an illuminating way its spirit, function, and 
history. 

These studies in art and nature, written in a fasci- 
nating style, opened new forgotten worlds of joy to 



VICTORIAN ESSAYISTS 



495 



the public, and of course the public liked them. The transit 
But it was not to like the sequel so well. Already, 
in the last volume of " Modern Painters," we find a 
new tone of sadness and disappointment. Ruskin 
felt that people, while applauding the beauty of his 
language, had not really been stirred to any true ap- 
preciation of Turner, and other broader matters were 
distressing him. Another revolutionary movement 
had passed over Europe in 1848 ; it had touched 
England but lightly, yet it had awakened men even 
there to a fresh sense of the wretchedness of the 
poor. Ruskin, in his own line, had been trying to 
revive the arts in England. He found, through ex- 
periments in art education and art production, that 
workmen were so made into machines, and kept so 
constantly anxious about bread and butter and rent, 
by modern industrial conditions, that it was hope- 
less to look to them for any creative power such 
as had been practically universal in the middle ages. 
This discovery led him to scrutinize more widely 
the conditions of modern life. He became filled 
with profound sorrow and dissatisfaction. He could 
not increase the pleasure of the classes that live 
daintily, by writing about art any longer, while the 
myriads were starving in soul as well as in body. 
So it came to pass that the high priest of beauty 
turned social reformer. 

In 1860 Ruskin published in the Cornhill Maga- work as 
zine the successive chapters of his book " Unto This s^ety* 
Last." It was a passionate, but for the most part 
sternly reasoned, arraignment of the injustice of the " Unto 
modern industrial system. It treated the technical Last," 
problems of economics in a literary manner ; that is, 1860r 



496 



MODERN ENGLAND 



it showed their concrete human significance and 
brought them within the range of sympathy. The 
public was amazed and angered by the audacious 
originality of the thought. Thackeray, the editor, 
dared not continue the series, and it closed abruptly. 

Nothing daunted by this reception, Ruskin con- 
tinued for the rest of his life to present to an irate 
and mocking public his ideas of the true principles 
whereon a righteous state must rest. People begged 
him to go on with art criticism. " You must get 
your country clean and your people lovely," he re- 
torted, "before you can have any true art at all." 
The filth, and hideousness of modern English cities 
pointed his application. Now he wrote for the privi- 
leged classes, trying to rouse them to their respon- 
sibilities ; now he addressed himself to working-men. 
Fors ciavi- Fors Glavigera, a monthly publication to which he 
1870-1878. devoted much energy in his later years, is a rich 
treasure-house of his teaching. It would be an 
unusual working-man who would care for this beau- 
tiful medley, but for an educated reader it is full 
of charm and suggestion. 

Ruskin's versatile powers did not confine them- 
selves, however, to one line. He reverted often to 
his early interests, and treated them in the light of 
his new convictions. In 1870 he was appointed Pro- 
fessor of Fine Arts at Oxford, and he devoted him- 
self most earnestly to his duties as he conceived them. 
Later life. His " Inaugural Oxford Lectures " seemed to himself 
one of his most important works. He did much to 
quicken social passion as well as artistic feeling 
among the young sons of privilege at the University. 
The university settlement movement, among other 



VICTORIAN ESSAYISTS 



497 



things, owes its first impetus to his teaching. But 
at last the continued scorn and indifference of the 
public to truths he believed vital, proved too great a 
strain. Ruskin became a victim to successive attacks 
of mental malady, and his faculties slipped at last 
into a state of gentle decay. In 1900 his weary 
spirit found release ; he had given away his large 
fortune, inherited and made by his books, but he 
retained a lovely home, Brantwood, in the Lake 
country, and here the last years of his life were Death, 
peacefully spent. 1900 - 

Ruskin's art criticism has led the way to a further 
development which has in some respects superseded 
his own work ; his social writings, at first discredited, 
are exerting a more and more potent influence in our 
generation. His great principle, " There is no wealth 
but life," is transforming our political economy. In 
pursuance of this principle, Ruskin pleads that we Ruskin's 
should be Christians just as much when we are 
buying clothes or hiring workmen as when we are 
saying our prayers. This principle sounds simple, 
but the world does not like to admit it, and if ad- 
mitted it carries us a long way, — quite outside the 
pale of the present social and industrial order. 
Ruskin's treatment of the ethics of consumption and 
production is searching and audacious indeed. 

Like his master, Carlyle, Ruskin never accepted 
evolutionary thought. Like Carlyle, also, he had a 
horror of democracy, which as he saw it meant a 
state of things where each individual was free to 
grab all he could get. His ideal social state, which 
he sought, vainly, to realize through his experiment 
in St. George's Guild, was a sort of socialism com- 



498 



MODERN ENGLAND 



bined with rigid class distinctions. But whatever 
limitations or mistakes may seem to us to inhere in 
Ruskin's social teaching, we must revere in him one 
of the noblest and the most heroic spirits of the 
English race ; and we may brood long over one sen- 
tence, which may be said to sum up the convictions 
of his life, " Life without industry is guilt ; industry 
without art is brutality." 

V. Matthew Arnold 

1822-1888. Matthew Arnold, like Ruskin and Newman, was 
an Oxford man ; he was three years younger than 
Ruskin. His father, Thomas Arnold, was the famous 
headmaster of Rugby, one of the greatest of English 
educators, a man of fine intellect, a liberal Christian 
after the school of Coleridge. 
Parentage The serene influences of Wordsworth were upon 
fife. early Matthew Arnold's early life, for his family lived much 
at Fox How, near the home of the old poet. After 
his Rugby days, which he shared with his friend 
Arthur Hugh Clough, Arnold went to Oxford. The 
power of Newman was at its height, but his father's 
mode of thought preserved him from its attractions. 
The University, however, put its stamp upon him : 
he is the most academic of our essayists. 

Matthew Arnold was born a poet, and his poetry 
we shall discuss in another chapter. It belongs to 
his youth, for the cares of practical life soon sub- 
merged him. He held the laborious position of 
Inspector of Schools, and toiled at his task inde- 
fatigably. But Arnold's energy and efficiency were 
great, and his working standard high. He was by 



VICTORIAN ESSAYISTS 



499 



nature critic as well as poet, and he produced a con- 
siderable volume of criticism perhaps finer in quality 
than anything that England had possessed. 

Carlyle had lifted criticism from the spirit of carp- Literary 
ing and prejudice that disfigures the early reviews j cism. 
he had treated such subjects as appealed to him with 
reverence and sympathy. Arnold lifted it higher 
yet, for he added to sympathy, discrimination, and a 
delicate power of psychological analysis. His " Lec- 
tures on Translating Homer," his " Essays in Criti- "OnTrans- 
cism," his " Celtic Literature," comprise his literary Homfr," 
criticism ; and they are the best things of their kind * 861 ' 
that England possesses, though much good criticism cffticfsin," 
has been produced since his day. He chose his sub- * 8 ^' 1888, 
jects, with no insular prejudice, from various non- Study 
English countries, with a preference for France ; he Litera- 10 
treated them with a breadth that always deduced 
something of wide general interest from the sub- 
ject in hand, yet with a fineness that interpreted the 
subtle phases of personality. Arnold believed that 
the special function of modern life was rather criti- 
cal than creative ; that we should get clearer ideas 
of the value and relations of the treasures we have, 
before we tried to advance into new regions. He also 
believed that criticism itself, if sensitive and intelli- 
gent enough, might be a kind of creation, and his 
own work goes far to prove his claim. 

Arnold was more than a critic of literature ; he Religious 
was a critic of life. Religious and social conditions C ism~. 
found in him more scathing analysis than in any << st. Paul 
other modern thinker. His chief book of social estant- 0t ~ 
criticism is called " Culture and Anarchy " ; his more lsm »" 1870 - 
important writings on religious subjects are " God 



500 



MODERN ENGLAND 



"Litera- 
ture and 
Dogma, " 
1873. 



" God and 
the Bible," 
1875. 



Social 
criticism. 

" Culture 
and Anar- 
chy," 1869. 

" Mixed 
Essays," 
1879. 



and the Bible," " Literature and Dogma," and " St. 
Paul and Protestantism." 

These last books were perhaps the most talked of 
in Arnold's lifetime, but he is not at his best in them. 
His fundamental assumption is that faith in super- 
natural Christianity is dead ; he seeks to find a sub- 
stitute in "morality touched by emotion," as he 
defines religion, and he tries to prove that the eter- 
nal value of the Bible is intact, though the belief in 
a personal God be abandoned. This seems a some- 
what paradoxical attempt. Still, there is much that 
is beautiful and helpful in Arnold's religious criti- 
cism, and we must not forget, though we are some- 
times tempted to by his manner, that his real aim 
was always reverent, and that he wished to further 
the life of the spirit, not to hinder it. 

Arnold's social criticism is interesting and signifi- 
cant. He is not an emotional writer, like Carlyle 
and Ruskin. Cool intellect is to the fore with him, 
and he habitually writes in a quiet, lightly ironical 
manner, quite different from their method of elo- 
quent appeal. Nor is he moved, as they are, by the 
condition of the working classes. But neither Car- 
lyle nor Ruskin is more deeply dissatisfied with his 
own time than is Arnold. They castigated our 
moral defects, he dissects our intellectual weakness. 
Not lack of justice, but lack of culture, in society, 
touches him most profoundly ; by culture he means 
the harmonious understanding of life which is potent 
to make reason and the will of God prevail. Till 
men get more of this quality, he thinks that they 
would better let reforms alone. The class with 
which he came most in contact was the middle 



VICTORIAN ESSAYISTS 



501 



class, dominant in an industrial democracy ; and his 
attacks on the stupidity and prejudices of this class 
— attacks which we may all take to ourselves — are 
not only sound, they are highly entertaining. 

Arnold did not distrust democracy, as Carlyle and 
Ruskin did. He belonged in thought to a younger 
generation, and he knew that it was inevitable. Aris- 
tocracies were, he saw, for epochs of concentration, 
not for epochs of expansion like ours ; their day was 
over. But he felt as strongly as his predecessors 
the grave dangers that beset democracy as it is ; 
dangers of materialism, of selfish laisser-faire. He 
believed that unless we succeed in spiritualizing the 
democracy, we shall all make shipwreck; and he 
thought that culture was the best means to do this, 
because it lifted us above our ordinary selves to our 
best selves, and showed us the image of a right 
society. He emphasized as much as Carlyle or Rus- 
kin the idea of authority, and he believed, as they 
did, in an extension of the powers of the State. 

Some people like Arnold's style very much ; others Arnold 
find it patronizing, flippant, and at times a little smart. style ' 
It is always clever and graceful, and when he allows 
himself to be serious it is at times noble. He does 
not admit many figures, and he does not attempt the 
cadence of poetry ; but his prose has a purity of move- 
ment all its own. It has one peculiarity, the con- 
stant use of felicitous phrases to sum up an idea, 
phrases which Arnold repeats like a motif in music. 
Often these phrases are borrowed from some one 
else, sometimes he invents them ; but many of them 
have become almost proverbial from familiarity. 
Such are "sweetness and light," "sweet reasonable- 



502 



MODERN ENGLAND 



ness," the definitions of English classes as " Barba- 
rians, Philistines, Populace," the famous statement 
that " our inequality materializes our upper class, 
vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower 
class ; " the definition of religion already given, and 
the definition of God as " a stream of tendency not 
ourselves that makes for righteousness." Arnold's 
style appears to be easy and loosely woven, even col- 
loquial at times ; but when one watches, one finds 
him to be perhaps more severely logical in the devel- 
opment of thought than any other modern essayist. 
It is the style of a keen thinker who is also a man 
of the world, and who might be a poet if he would 
let himself. 



VI. Later Essayists 



Walter 
Pater, 
1839-1895. 



" Mar i us 
the Epicu- 
rean," 
1885. 

William 

Morris, 

1834-1896. 



"A Dream 
of John 
Ball," 
1888. 

" News 
from 

Nowhere," 
1890. 



We have left ourselves no space in which to speak 
of the later Victorian essay; it is as well, for this 
essay is quite too near for us to judge. Two names 
stand out with peculiar clearness during the last 
twenty years of the nineteenth century ; the names 
of Walter Pater and William Morris. They were 
both Oxford men, but of most different destinies. 
Pater, all his life long a recluse in the University, 
sought refuge and peace in an aesthetic philosophy ; 
he produced essays critical in scholarship and ex- 
quisitely fastidious in style, and one remarkable 
historical romance, " Marius the Epicurean," all sedu- 
lously remote from the din and stress of our modern 
conflict. Morris, equally antagonistic by nature to 
modern conditions, was yet driven by imperious in- 
ward stress on the same path Ruskin had followed, 



VICTORIAN ESSAYISTS 



503 



only farther, away from art to the active propaganda 
of socialism ; he produced, as his finest prose work, 
essays instinct with modern social passion, and two 
beautiful romances that pulsate with the hopes of a 
new day. Other essayists, critics of literature and 
life, have obtained excellence if not eminence. But 
the four whom we have treated tower above all others, 
with only Pater and Morris visible at their side. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Macaulay, Life, by Trevelyan ; by Cotter Morison (Eng- 
lish Men of Letters). Essay, by Bagehot, Literary Studies. 
Carlyle, Life, by Froude ; Garnett (Great Writers Series) ; 
Nichol (E. M. L.). Letters and Reminiscences, ed. by C. E. 
Norton, Essays by Lowell, Morley, Stephen (Dictionary of 
National Biography). Newman, Life, by Hutton; Apologia 
pro Yita Sua. The Oxford Movement, Dean Church. Selec- 
tions, ed. by Lewis Gates. Buskin, Life, by Colllngwood ; 
Prseterita (his fragmentary but charming autobiography) . Mrs. 
Bitchie, Becords of Tennyson, Buskin, and Browning. Essays, 
Waldstein, The Work of John Buskin. V. D. Scudder, 
Introduction to the Writings of John Buskin. Hobson, John 
Buskin, Social Beformer (an admirable book). Mrs. Mey- 
nell, John Buskin. Arnold, Letters, ed. by G. W. E. Bussell ; 
Life, by Salntsbury. Essays, Gates, Introduction to Selec- 
tions. Whipple, Becollections of Eminent Men. General 
references, Bayne, Lessons from My Masters, Carlyle, Buskin, 
Arnold. Scudder, Social Ideals in English Letters, Part EL 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

As we approach our own times, no two teachers will agree 
in interpretation or emphasis. Moreover, the selections made 
must depend wholly on the age and character of a class. Young 
students, for instance, would better approach Carlyle through 
" Heroes and Hero- Worship." " Sartor Besartus " is far more 
stimulating for those a little more mature. In carefully chosen 
extracts from the " French Bevolution " and " Past and Present," 
Book II, all students can be trained to appreciate Carlyle's 
narrative and descriptive power and the peculiarities of his 



504 



MODERN ENGLAND 



style. Selections from Newman, such as are given by Gates, 
or passages from the "Idea of a University," serve to point 
the always useful contrast between classical and romantic styles. 
The more emotional portions of Newman's work cannot be 
appreciated by the immature. 

Much in Ruskin's early writings and in his charming minor 
books, such as " Sesame and Lilies " and the " Ethics of the 
Dust " can be enjoyed early. Selections illustrating his word 
painting, his interpretation of nature and art, his simpler ethical 
teaching are arranged in order in Scudder's " Introduction to the 
Writings of John Ruskin." It is also pleasant and useful to 
study in the concrete, by means of photographs, Ruskin's inter- 
pretation of art in pictures. The whole series of frescoes in the 
Spanish Chapel at Florence, for instance, can be secured, and 
studied with the help of the delightful little volume, " Mornings 
in Florence." Ruskin's method in art criticism should be criti- 
cised as well as expounded by the teacher, in the light of 
methods more recent. 

In Arnold, the " Essay on Celtic Literature," especially the 
latter portion, can be made to serve as a sort of review of the 
whole sweep of English literature, the class being encouraged 
to trace the three great racial elements in their interplay through 
the more important books that have been read together. Such 
of the critical essays of Carlyle and Arnold as treat of authors 
familiar to the class should be read. 

But care must be taken in this period not to force young 
minds beyond the point of perception natural to them, by any 
attempt to present comprehensive analysis of authors who will 
give stimulus and inspiration all along the pathway of life. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

Biographical lectures would here be in order, interesting the 
class in the personality of each of these great men. Ample 
material for a talk, sure to be enjoyed, on the Childhood of 
Some Great Men, is offered by Carlyle's " Reminiscences " and 
"Sartor Resartus," Ruskin's " Praeterita," Newman's "Apolo- 
gia," and Hughes's " Tom Brown at Rugby." (The latter gives 
a vivid picture of the conditions surrounding the childhood of 
Arnold and Clough.) Also : Criticism, from Jeffrey to Arnold ; 
Why do Artists turn Reformers? (illustrated by Ruskin and 
Morris) . 



CHAPTER VIII 



VICTORIAN POETRY 

THE early work of Tennyson and Browning 
struck an entirely new note. Tennyson's fairy 
fineness of phrase obviously, indeed, owed much to 
Keats, while " Pauline " was the work of an avowed 
disciple of Shelley ; but there was a delicate con- 
scious artistry in this work of Tennyson, different 
from the spontaneous onrush of music in his prede- 
cessors, while Browning in "Pauline" valiantly 
assayed a new art-form, the dramatic monologue, 
and showed a new absorption in the scenery of an 
individual mind other than his own. 

These two greatest of the Victorian poets, as they 
began first, continued longest in the field. During 
their prolonged careers, two minor schools of poetry 
rose and fell. Let us glance at these before we 
turn to the masters. 

I. Minor Schools 

The spiritual wistfulness of the Victorian age ^ ^ ts of 
found searching and melodious expression in the 
work of Matthew Arnold and Arthur Hugh Clough. Matthew 
We have already spoken of Arnold's prose. The ^£1888 
poetry of his youth gives us the clew to that under- 
woof of feeling of which a sensitive reader is con- 
scious through all the persiflage and argument of 

505 



506 



MODERN ENGLAND 



his later years. Not that his poetry is impassioned ; 
it is strictly self-controlled, and thrills us chiefly 
through its exquisite reserve. But it is full of the 
melancholy sense of spiritual incertitudes ; we feel 
in it the expression of a soul — 



"Poems, 
1855. 



"Merope, 
1858. 



Arthur 
Hugh 
Clough, 
1819-1861. 



" Wandering between two worlds, one dead, 
The other powerless to be born." 

An elegiac strain pervades it ; and indeed the best 
and most finished work in this highly wrought verse 
are the avowedly elegiac poems. Arnold's theory 
of poetry was that it should deal with noble action, 
should draw its themes from the heroic past, should 
be universal in its appeal. He tried these theories 
occasionally, and the result, " Sohrab and Rustum," 
" Balder Dead," is fine but a little cold. But as a 
rule he disregarded his theory, and he has given us 
poetry which, in its rendering of those subtle emo- 
tions that spring from the life of thought, could 
never have been written before the nineteenth cen- 
tury, and appealed only to the few in its own age. 
For these few, however, its charm is compelling, and 
shows no trace of lessening as the years go on. A 
lofty self-dependence, resignation, courage, — this is, 
after all his spiritual striving, the mood in which 
Arnold seeks to rest. 

Arthur Hugh Clough, the friend of Arnold, was 
of a more robust genius. His training and tradition, 
at school and University, were the same as Arnold's, 
but we seem to feel in him a more direct relation to 
the life of action as well as to the life of thought. 
He was intensely interested in the social problems 
that were coming to the fore in '48, as well as in the 



VICTOEIAN POETRY 



507 



religious questions that affected his own soul ; his 
long narrative poems, " The Bothie of Tober-na- « The 
Vuolich," "Amours de Voyage," " Mari Magno," ^Jgjf of 



na- 



show this double interest, and his most characteristic v ^ lich '' 
poem, " Dipsychus," a sort of latter-day Faust, is full 
of both. Still, the most important thing in his con- 
sciousness is man's relation to unseen realities. Like 
Arnold, he was powerfully drawn to Christianity, yet ^-^ar- 
smitten by doubt concerning it, and the poems which 1849.' 
express this mood, like " Easter Day," and " The New 
Sinai," express with less delicate finish than Arnold, 
but with a poignant sincerity, his sense of loss, his " h Di Pfy- 
hope, his spiritual courage. Clough died at Florence 1862.' 
in 1861. Like many modern men touched with the 
Hamlet-temper, we feel that his nature never found 
full utterance. But few truer notes than his have 
been struck in the poetry of the century. 

" Oh not unowned, Thou shalt unnamed forgive," 

he cries. His refuge is not, like Arnold's, in self- 
dependence, but in faith that clings to a Truth 
unseen. 

Questions concerning religious creeds did not dis- 2. Poets of 
tress the second school of minor Victorian poets. 
We may call them the poets of art, as we called 
Arnold and Clough the poets of doubt. The eldest, 
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, is the greatest name ; the 
others of the group are Algernon Charles Swin- 
burne, and William Morris. 

It shows the tendency of this group that two of General 
them, Rossetti and Morris, were not only poets but 
artists. They were closely associated in friendship, 
moreover, with certain painters, notably Millais, Hoi- 



Art. 



tendency. 



508 



MODERN ENGLAND 



man Hunt, and Sir Edward Burne-Jones, who have 
largely helped the renaissance of beauty in England. 
All these men carried further the movement toward 
beauty which Ruskin had begun, and on lines that 
he approved. They are often called Preraphaelites 
because they drew inspiration from the religious 
feeling and the effort after minute truthfulness to 
nature, of the Italian painters who precede Raphael. 
All of them, to use a phrase dear to their school, 
believe that life might be " made perfect by the love 
of visible beauty"; and the habit of thinking in 
pictures, so that the most passionate emotion imme- 
diately passes into the concrete symbol, is the distin- 
guishing mark of their poetry. In a way they 
derive from Keats, but there is a subconsciousness 
of sordid modern life in their work which we do not 
find in his. They force their way violently into that 
world of dreams wherein he was tranquilly born. 
One of them at least, Morris, could not stay there, 
but was drawn forth by the voices of the world's sor- 
row to join the socialist propaganda ; a thing which 
we cannot imagine happening to Keats. 
Dante Dante Gabriel Rossetti was born of Italian 

Rossetti, parents, settled in London. We are constantly re- 
1828-1882. m i nc [ e( 5[ i n reading him that he is really an Italian 
writing in English. Italian influence had been 
slight in England since the time of the later Renais- 
sance. The Victorian age opened a sensitive sur- 
face to almost every influence from abroad ; and, 
among others, Italy affected it, through Rossetti 
and the Brownings. 

The instinct to paint was stronger than that to 
write in Rossetti. In 1848, he started, with other 



VICTORIAN POETRY 



509 



young men, the Preraphaelite Brotherhood of artists. 
It was the revolutionary year; dough's "Amours de 
Voyage," Carlyle's " Latter Day Pamphlets," Kings- 
ley's "Alton Locke," the Christian socialist move- 
ment started by Kingsley and Frederick Denison 
Maurice, and Mrs. Browning's " Aurora Leigh " 
were to express part of the feeling it generated in 
England. But the fate of the people did not inter- 
est these young men, who withdrew themselves into 
an ideal world of poetry, beauty, and feeling. In 
their significant little organ, the Germ, appeared 
some of the loveliest of the early verse of Rossetti, 
including the "Blessed Damozel." But he seems to 
have thought lightly of his verse in comparison with 
his painting, and he continued to be chiefly an artist. 
His poetry, however, produced from time to time 
and privately circulated, came to exert a strong 
influence in certain circles. His charming transla- 
tions of Dante's " Vita Nuova," and of other early ^he^ 
Italian poetry, helped to make him better known. ^ tal j an „ 
Finally, in 1870, and again in 1881, volumes of his 1861. ' 
poems appeared. They gave in words the emotions "Poems," 
of his paintings. Many of them were of strange and ' 
singular beauty: ballad poems, numerous lyrics, and and Son- 
a series of love sonnets called " The House of Life," i88i! 
which have taken their place in our many sonnet- 
cycles, beside Shakespeare's sonnets and Mrs. Brown- 
ing's " Sonnets from the Portuguese." 

Romanticism, from which English fiction was at 
this time straining away, holds full sway once more 
in the work of Rossetti. Beauty touched with 
strangeness exactly describes its charm. His poetry 
is charged with the sense of mystery, natural and 



510 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Algernon 
Charles 
Swin- 
burne, 
1837. 



" Rosa- 
mund," 
1861. 



' ' Atalanta 
in Caly- 
don," 1864. 



" Chaste- 
lard," 
1865. 



" Poems 
and 

Ballads," 
1866-1889. 



" Songs 
before 
Sunrise," 
1871. 



" Songs of 
the Spring- 
tide," 
1880. 



" Tristram 
of Lyon- 



1882. 



spiritual ; far from wishing to penetrate the truth 
which the mystery hides, as Arnold does, and Clough, 
he exults in the mystery itself. He is not truly 
spiritual, and, needless to say, he has no large vision 
of the actual world; but all he writes is full of a 
passion that is serious and very pure, and to express 
this passion he finds again and again some strange, 
haunting, inevitable phrase. 

In some ways, no English poet has ever had a 
finer endowment than Algernon Charles Swinburne. 
He is past master of versification and melody. Un- 
fortunately, his verse has not sufficient intellectual or 
moral substance to correspond to its marvellous form. 
His poetry is full of enthusiasm, indeed, for political 
freedom, but Odes to Liberty, which were genuine 
in Shelley's day, sound like an academic echo in 
days that have learned how little political liberty 
means taken by itself. The senses have too large a 
part in the inspiration of Swinburne ; the world of 
thought seems far away, and the world of spiritual 
vision is quite unguessed. He is at his best, and it 
is a splendid best, when writing of Nature, especially 
of the sea. Besides a marvellous wealth of lyrics, 
Swinburne has produced, among other things, a 
group of long dramas. They are fine in their way, 
but destitute of humor and of wide and varied 
power in character delineation. His two Greek 
plays, " Atalanta in Calydon," and " Erectheus," 
although early work, are as beautiful as anything 
he has written, and contain choruses supreme in 
lyrical modulations. Swinburne's most interesting 
mood is one of violent rebellion, hatred of Christian- 
ity with its doctrine of suffering, exaltation of un- 
trammelled humanity as the lord of creation : — 



VICTORIAN POETRY 



511 



" Glory to man in the highest : for man is the master of « Rosa- 
things." gggd" 

But this vehement agnosticism, though magnifi- 
cently expressed at times, has as he words it too 
little philosophical basis to be really great. Swin- 
burne has, however, fine positive enthusiasms, as 
shown not only in his verse, but in his copious criti- 
cal prose, which lacks balance and discrimination, 
but evinces an enviable power of admiration. 

William Morris, who became during his later life William 

a great force in England, revived for us through his ig^isge. 
delightful work in verse many of the imaginative 
pleasures of the past. He most clearly shows the 

tendency of this school of poets to revert to earlier " The De- 

and simpler times for that rest and beauty which Guene- 

the modern world does not furnish. " The Earthly ifjf' 
Paradise " is a collection of tales admirably told, 

drawn now from classic stores, now from med- " Lif , ea ° d 

Death of 

iseval lore, and recalling by the studied grace of Jason," 
handling the manner of the early Renaissance. " The 

Defence of Guinevere," Morris's earliest volume, « The 

holds a series of Arthurian studies. " Jason " is a Earthly 

fine version of the familiar classic story; while dise," 

" Sigurd the Volsung," Morris's noblest work in 1868 ~ 1870 - 

verse, is a glorious retelling of the old hero-saga, and « gj gur( i 

the finest result yet of the enthusiasm for the wild the v ° 1_ 

J sung, 

myths of our Celtic and Germanic forefathers. Only 1870. 
a part of Morris's wonderful versatility went into 
poetry : — 



" When the gods asked him for one deed, he ever gave 
them twain," 



512 



MODERN ENGLAND 



as he says of his Sigurd. After he turned socialist, 
a few lyrics were all that he produced in verse ; but 
his prose romances are the work of a true poet. 

II. Alfred Tennyson 

1809-1892. We turn to the masters ; and we see that in quan- 
tity of work and in breadth of scope, no less than in 
quality, they show natures richer and larger than 
those of the other modern poets. Tennyson does 
not appeal perhaps to any individual temperament 
so strongly as Arnold appeals to one, Rossetti to 
another ; but in the sensitiveness and varied range 
of his tranquil work, no less than in his artistic per- 
fection, we recognize that he was the representative 
English poet of the Victorian age. His whole career 
befits the poet of an epoch of peace, of constitutional 
progress, of scientific advance ; and it was in this 
aspect that the Victorian age appeared to Tennyson. 
There was, to be sure, another aspect ; this, in his 
singularly sheltered life, he never adequately realized. 

Life. Alfred Tennyson was the son of a clergyman ; he 

was educated at Cambridge, and always cherished 
the memory of his college days. He won recognition 
early, but was not pressed into too hasty work. His 
life, unstirred by unusual incidents, but marked by 
high converse with the leading men of his time, was 
spent in fair and quiet places. Queen Victoria loved 
the man and his poetry, and after the death of 
Wordsworth, in 1850, the laurel was placed, unques- 
tioned, on his brow. In this year he married. His 
honored years led to a quiet death. 

Work. The volume of 1830 was one of delicate preludings. 



VICTORIAN POETRY 



513 



In that of 1833 were many of the poems still dearest 
to the public, including " The Lady of Shalott," " A 
Dream of Fair Women," "The Palace of Art," 
"The Two Voices." For the next ten years he pub- 
lished nothing, but revised with exquisite care what 
he had already written and wrote new poems slowly " Poems 
and quietly as inspiration came. In 1842 a volume Brothers ,' 
of revised selections from his earlier work appeared, 182/ " 
and also a new volume, which revealed the full power <<p ems," 
of his art. This is the volume of the " Morte 
d'Arthur," earliest member of those blank verse 
transcriptions of Arthurian legend which were to 
constitute the most ambitious work of his life. 

In 1847 appeared "The Princess," a playfully « The 
romantic poem on the woman question. A later f 8 r ^ cess '' 
edition contained some of Tennyson's most magi- 
cal work in the form of interspersed lyrics. So far, 
Tennyson's work had expressed no deep personal 
experience, though a poem like " The Two Voices " 
showed a nature sensitive to the spiritual drama of 
the time. His inspiration had been literary and de- 
rived, and his poems had shown perfect workmanship 
and fine imagination, but not much passion. In 
1833, however, an experience had come to him which 
struck deep. This was the death of his dear friend, 
the betrothed of his sister, Arthur Hallam. We are 
glad of this great sorrow, for it has given us one of 
our great treasures, the crowning expression of the 
elegiac instinct so strong in the Anglo-Saxon race, 
— "In Memoriam." Here English elegy escapes at 
last from the beautiful but conventional setting of 
classic elegy, used in different ways by Milton, Shel- 
ley, and Arnold. It faces Grief directly, till at last in 



514 



MODERN ENGLAND 



1855 



Grief's eyes it sees reflected the light of an eternal 
Memo- hope. " In Memoriam " is not a poem of spiritual 
1850 1 '" triumph so much as of spiritual search ; the search 
of a modern man, conscious of all the obstacles pre- 
sented to faith in immortality by the natural order 
and by philosophic doubt, yet moving to belief that 
the undying instinct of the heart is witness to a life 
that cannot die. After long and loving work the 
poem was published in 1850 ; it is in more senses 
than one the central poem of the century to English- 
speaking men. 

Maud," In 1855, appeared " Maud," a monodrama telling a 
rather morbid story of passion and sorrow. Tenny- 
son's genius was mature, and his work came swiftly 
"idylls of now. The " Idylls of the King'," on which his mind 

the King," _ . J °\ 

1858-1886. dwelt for many years, grew gradually on his hands, 
from a series of separate studies to a complete poem 
with something like epic unity. They are based on 
Malory, and nowhere can the changes wrought by 
the modern spirit be more effectively studied than in 
Tennyson's handling of his original. The old story 
had a great moral of its own ; Tennyson gives it a 
new one, to suit the nineteenth century. Some prefer 
the decorous modern version, some like the passion, 
truth, and mystery of the wild old tale ; but all must 
agree that narrative blank verse was never handled 
with more perfect mastery than in the " Idylls of the 
King." 

Other Tennyson wrote a large number of narrative poems, 

dealing with English life, of which " Enoch Arden " 
is perhaps the best. In his later years he attempted 
the drama, and added a group of three patriotic 
dramas from English history to those Shakespeare 



work. 



VICTORIAN POETRY 



515 



left. But his dramatic work, though dignified, is 
not a marked success. If he lives he will live 
supremely as a lyric poet, and the lyrical inspiration 
was his last as it had been his first. 

Tennyson expresses his age in its more obvious Tenny- 
aspects, especially in the enlargement of thought and relation 
the social conditions that followed on applied scien- t0 hls a| 
tific inventions and on the rise of evolutionary 
theory. His poetry is soaked with scientific terms 
and ideas ; his central faith is in the gradual uplift 
of the race to a higher and fuller life. He constantly 
seeks spiritual conviction, but with a keen conscious- 
ness all the time of the point of view of the doubter. 
He was keenly aware of the modern struggle with 
materialism, and threw all the resources of his art 
on the side of an idealist philosophy. The social 
unrest and the social evils of his time, however, he 
never understood, though they caused him distress 
and perplexity, especially in his later years ;' he was 
never in direct contact with them. He was per- 
fectly content with England as he saw it, with 
English homes, those " haunts of ancient peace," 
with English men and English girls ; the England 
known to him was the secluded England of the 
aristocracy, not Dickens's seething England of the 
middle class. He seems insular to continental criti- 
cism, and his outlook certainly has marked limita- 
tions ; but his quiet idyls of English life present a 
picture of which we cannot fail to feel the beauty. 
His art is studied and exquisite, lovely in every Tenny- 
detail; his poetry is of that literary order, just sonsar 
below the highest, which delights us more by the 
associations and memories it arouses, than by the 



516 



MODERN ENGLAND 



new thought or passion it quickens. His work 
rarely excites, like that of his predecessors, or like 
that of his contemporary, Browning ; but in our 
ordinary and habitual moods it satisfies. 

III. Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

1809-18G1. Robert Browning would wish us to place before 
his own name, the name of his beloved wife, Eliza- 
beth Barrett ; and indeed the thought of one of 
these wedded lovers will always suggest the other. 
Mrs. Browning is the greatest woman poet of Eng- 
land, though some think the work of Christina 
Rossetti, narrower in range though it be, more likely 
to live because of its more sustained art power. Mrs. 
Browning's poetry is marred by carelessness ; her 
impulsive passion and imagination need the check of 
judgment. She was an invalid for many years, and 
her work is that of a woman of naturally wide 
and intense sympathies shut in upon herself. Her 
genius, however, no one can deny. The soul of 
melody was in her, as many of her lyrics attest ; 
" Aurora Leigh," her long novel in verse, is a fine 
expression of the social ferment in the central years 
of the century ; of her personal love poems, the 
" Sonnets from the Portuguese," one must speak softly, 
with deep reverence for this throbbing revelation of 
a beautiful heart, given us in beautiful verse. 

IV. Robert Browning 

1812-1889. In Robert Browning we have one of the most 
paradoxical figures of the Victorian age. Only 



VICTORIAN POETRY 



517 



three years younger than Tennyson, it was his fate 
to see fame, lavishly bestowed on his brother poet, 
long elude him. His production was more copi- His repu- 
ous than Tennyson's ; but his successive volumes, 
applauded by the few, were ridiculed by the many 
as obscure, unintelligible, and out of the true range 
of art. His spirit was never daunted ; and in his old 
age the tide turned. He lived to see societies estab- 
lished for the interpretation of his work, and to enjoy 
a popularity almost ludicrous in its suddenness. It 
is too soon to know what Browning's final place will 
be ; we can at least see that he was not a poet to 
express, like Tennyson, the common consciousness of 
the educated classes. He expressed, as no one else 
has done, some of the more occult forces at work 
beneath the surface of modern life, and so, in the 
fulness of time, he became, not only an exponent, 
but a leader. 

Browning's life had practically no events, except Life, 
his marriage with Miss Barrett. He was a Lon- 
doner, with no university education. " Italy was 
my university," he said. He had comfortable means, 
so that he could devote his life to literature. In 
1845 he met Miss Barrett, an invalid confined to 
her room ; he persuaded the frail shadowlike woman 
to marry him, — secretly, for fear of family opposi- 
tion, — and to fly with him to the Continent. There, 
in Florence mainly, they led an enchanted life, till 
her death in 1861. After that the surviving poet, 
taking his sorrow bravely, as befitted the author 
of poems vibrating with faith in immortality, lived, 
now in London, now in Italy, though not in Florence, 
till, in 1889, he died in Venice. 



518 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Work. 



" Pauline, 
1833. 



" Para- 
celsus," 
1835. 

" Sor- 

dello," 

1840. 

Dramas, 
1837-1846. 



"Men and 

Women," 

1855. 

"Dramatis 
Personse," 
1869. 



Browning's first work showed the sweep of his 
power. He began, not with short lyrics, but with 
three long poems, " Pauline," " Paracelsus," and " Sor- 
dello." The first two were practically dramatic mono- 
logues, though " Paracelsus " was nominally a drama. 
" Sordello " was a long narrative poem, excessively 
obscure, though full of beautiful detail. In all these 
poems, Browning is profoundly influenced by Shelley. 
The series of "Bells and Pomegranates" followed, and 
it showed the essentially dramatic turn of his genius 
for it included the great group of dramas, " Pippa 
Passes," " The Return of the Druses," " A Blot on 
the 'Scutcheon," " Colombe's Birthday," " Luria," "A 
Soul's Tragedy," and others. But if his genius 
was dramatic, it was not so in the sense that the 
Shakespeareans were dramatic. Browning liked to 
get into another consciousness, but he did not like 
to do this for a great many people at once ; his 
interest centred in individuals. He found his true 
art form in the brief dramatic monologue. Such 
monologues were the best and largest element in the 
two collections, "Men and Women" and "Dramatis 
Personse." These collections contain the best loved 
of Browning's work, and remarkable they are. 
Poetry has here come down from the heights to 
the cities ; it moves among men, close to their 
business and bosoms, at home with any nationality 
or period, Hebrew, Greek, French, Italian, English. 
It seeks to penetrate men's secrets, to note their 
motives, those " seeds of act, God holds appraising 
in His hollow palm." In closeness of condensed 
portraiture, the Victorian age has no greater work 
than this. The non-dramatic or slightly dramatic 



VICTORIAN POETRY 



519 



poems of this period, like "Saul," "Christmas Eve 
and Easter Day," "Rabbi Ben Ezra," and "Abt 
Vogler," are the most positive expressions of spiritual 
faith that Victorian poetry has reached. 

Browning's masterpiece is "The Ring and the ^The 
Book." It is our modern English epic ; we have SeSook," 

1868 

travelled far indeed from the days of Beowulf. The 
poem combines in a way the advantages of epic and 
drama, for it is a series of dramatic monologues, 
telling the same story from different points of view. 
This story is the record of an obscure murder case 
of the late seventeenth century in Rome which 
Browning found in a yellow parchment book. Out 
of this unpromising material Browning has evolved 
a marvellous study of sin, purity, and struggle, 
shown not only as they affect the main actors, but 
as they serve as touchstones to reveal the char- 
acter of the bystanders and critics. To one who 
cares only for the story, " The Ring and the Book " 
is insufferably tedious ; to one who cares for events 
as they create and display character, it is an illumi- 
nating poem. It sounds depths of vileness and in- 
iquity, but the study of the woman-child Pompilia 
and of the wise old Pope Innocent are the fullest 
expression of the power of the spiritual to transform 
the natural that Victorian poetry possesses. 

After " The Ring and the Book," Browning's gen- Later 
ius passed into another phase. He indulged his keen ^ ork ' , 

,111 . - - i • , Poems of 

intellect by the creation of a series of paradoxical casuistry. 

1871—1876 

poems of casuistry, " Fifine at the Fair," " Aristoph- 
anes' Apology," "Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau," "LaSai- 
etc. These poems are stimulating, but imagination ^s. 
and beauty seem a little far away, as indeed they do 



520 



MODERN ENGLAND 



"Dra- 
matic 
Idyls," 

1879^1880. 

" Aso- 

lando," 

1889. 

Brown- 
ing's 
spirit. 



in much of Browning's later work. The lyrics of 
his later life, and of his very last volume, show, how- 
ever, that the old fire had not abated, and that the 
old faith still burned clear. 

Anything that expresses life, however grotesque 
and ugly it be, seemed to Browning fit subject for 
art. His quest, like that of many modern artists, 
was less for the beautiful than for the significant. 
Life, moreover, seemed to him something not finished, 
but in the making. His poetry thrills with the 
sense of development through struggle, of the glory 
of the imperfect. It is splendidly militant. "All 
to the very end is trial in life," and the crises of trial 
wherein the destiny of souls is decided he delights 
to show us. He chants no pensive elegies over the 
prevalence of doubt ; he voices exultation in a faith 
all the stronger because won out of the shadows. 

" You call for faith, 
I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists. 
The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say, 
If faith o'ercomes doubt." 1 



Browning strikes the most triumphant note of the 
Victorian period : his creed is Christian, and his in- 
terpretation of life is pervaded by his Christianity. 



V. Conclusion 

Victorian poetry dealt, not like that of the preced- 
ing age, with Nature and humanity, but with human- 
ity alone. It penetrated the heart and soul of man, 
and feared nothing that it should find there. It saw 
few visions ; the mark of search was on it, as on all 

1 "Bishop Blougram's Apology." 



VICTORIAN POETRY 



521 



the literature of the modern world. For the litera- 
ture of the nineteenth century was one, not of ex- 
ultant discovery like that of the Renaissance, not 
of placid formulae, like that of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, but of experiment and doubt. It was marked, 
more than the literature of any other age, by a pro- 
found discontent, by a sense of the unity with which 
the destiny of the whole race is bound together, by 
an eager pressing toward the future. It yearned 
toward a nobler society, toward a clearer vision of 
spiritual truth. Like the last group of prophets 
painted by Sargent in the Boston Public Library, the 
faces of the men of imagination and vision in the 
last century were turned longingly to the East. The 
good queen, who gave her high prophetic name to 
one of the great eras of literatures, passed away 
in the fulness of her years — beloved of all the 
world. The nineteenth century and the Victorian age 
went out together. We leave the great literature of 
the English race, with new horizons opening around 
it, new questions forming on its lips. What answer 
will the literature of the twentieth century bring ? 
What fair, unknown countries will it explore ? We 
cannot tell ; we watch, and wait, and trust the future. 

REFERENCE BOOKS 

Stedman, Victorian Poets. Walker, The Age of Tenny- 
son. Oliphant, Victorian Age of English Literature. Scud- 
der, The Life of the Spirit in the Modern English Poets. 

Essay on Arnold as a Poet, R. H. Hutton (Literary Essays). 
Essay on Clough, Bagehot (Literary Studies). Life of Ros- 
setti, Knight (Great Writers Series). Sharp, D. G. Rossetti. 
William M. Rossetti, D. G. Rossetti, as Designer and Writer. 
Morris, Life, by Mackail (2 vols.), one of the best and most 
absorbing of modern biographies. 



522 



MODERN ENGLAND 



Tennyson, Life, by his Son (2 vols.)- S. A. Brooke, Ten- 
nyson : His Art and Relation to Modern Life. Van Dyke, 
The Poetry of Tennyson. Waugh, Lord Tennyson. Essays 
by Dowden, F. W. Myers, Hutton. Mrs. Ritchie, Records 
of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning. Article, by Ainger, Dic- 
tionary of National Biography. 

Browning, Life, by Mrs. Sutherland Orr (2 vols). 
Sharp (Great Writers Series), Browning Society Papers; 
Papers of the Boston Browning Society. Handbook, Mrs. 
Sutherland Orr. Introduction to the Study of Browning, 
Arthur Symons. Introduction, Corson. Berdoe, The 
Browning Cyclopaedia. Essays by Bagehot, Hutton, J. J. 
Chapman (Emerson and Other Essays). 

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-WORK 

The young student would best study short chosen poems, 
as Arnold's " Forsaken Merman," " Balder," " Sohrab and Rus- 
tum " ; Rossetti's " King's Tragedy " and " White Ship " ; stories 
from Morris's "Earthly Paradise"; the "Idylls of the King," 
"Enoch Arden," the "Princess," short lyrics, from Tennyson; 
the " Flight of the Duchess," " Herve Riel," " Andrea del Sarto," 
" Abt Vogier," " Rabbi Ben Ezra," from Browning. Each one 
may be dwelt on by itself, and the temperament and art of the 
poets should become familiar. It is also possible to make cer- 
tain modern poems the occasion of a review. Morris's " Sigurd 
the Volsung " may thus be compared with " Beowulf " and the 
Volsung Saga ; Rossetti's " Ballads " with genuine old Ballads ; 
" The Idylls of the King " with Malory. In more advanced 
classes it is valuable to do with one poem, — as, for instance, 
"In Memoriam," — all that can be done. Study it in itself, for 
beauty, structure, thought movement, etc. Relate it to the 
other work of the author. Relate the poem, and incidentally 
the author's other work, to the general products and tendencies 
of his time. Broaden out and compare this poem with poems 
of similar motif or subject in all the earlier periods of our 
literature. 

TALKS FROM THE TEACHER 

Here, again, biographical talks are the most valuable. The 
Preraphaelite Movement in Art, illustrated by photographs ; 
How Science is Affecting Poetry ; The Spiritual Outlook of the 
Modern Poets. 



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INDEX I 



AUTHORS AND THEIR WORKS 



A 

Abelard, Peter, 90. 

Absalom and Achilophel, 324, 331. 

Acta Sanctorum, 283. 

Adam Bede, 479, 480, 484. 

Addison, Joseph, 313, 316, 319, 338, 340, 342, 

343, 348-354, 392, 412. 
Adonais, 436, 443, 444. 
Advancement of Learning, 271, 280. 
.Eliric, 90. 

Mneid, The, 129, 159, 184, 194. 
^schylus, 245, 313, 435. 
sFsop's Fables, 96, 159, 510. 
Againbite of Inwyt, The, 83, 97. 
Akenside, Mark, 375, 379. 
Alastor, 219, 434. 
Alchemist, The, 259, 280, 306. 
Alexander the Great (Epic Cycle) , 68, 90, 
95, 98. 

Alfred (King), 40, 80, 91. 

Allegro L' , 287, 288, 297. 

All for Love, 316, 319, 322. 

All's Well that Ends Well, 245, 255. 

Amadis de Gaul, 124. 

Amis and Amiloun, 96. 

Analogy of Religion, 344, 381. 

Anatomy of Melancholy, The, 272, 282. 

Ancient Mariner, The, 421, 427, 443. 

Ancren Riwle, The, 92, 93, 97. 

Andrew of Wyntoun, 126. 

Andrewes, Launcelot, 272, 273, 283. 

Angelico, Fra, 127, 129. 

Angelo, Michael, 192. 

Annus Mirabilis, 323. 

Anselm, 90. 

Antony and Cleopatra, 245,247, 316, 319, 
322. 

Apologia pro Vita Sua, 492, 504. 
Apologie for Poetrie, 179, 204, 279, 444. 
Aquinas, Thomas, 93. 
Arbuthnot, John, 352. 
Arcades, 288. 

Arcadia, The, 128, 199, 200, 204, 279. 
Areopagitica, 291. 
Ariosto, 192, 206, 225, 228. 



Aristotle, 55, 171. 

Arnold, Sir Edwin, 524. 

Arnold, Matthew, 56, 89, 179, 275, 344, 390, 

406, 431, 440, 451, 466, 498-502, 504-507, 

510, 512, 513, 522, 524. 
Arnold, Thomas, 523. 
Arraignment of Paris, 232, 277. 
Arthur (Epic Cycle and Romances), 25, 

69-74, 76, 77, 79, 85, 91, 92, 98, 124, 219, 

292. 

Ascham, Roger, 194, 203. 

As You Like It, 200, 204, 237, 240, 241, 255. 

Atalanta in Calydon, 510. 

Athelard of Bath, 90. 

Aucassin and Nicolette, 68, 91. 

Aurora Leigh, 509, 516. 

Austen, Jane, 448-450, 455, 457. 

Ayala, Pedro Lopez, 124. 

Aytoun, William Edmonstoune, 523. 

B 

Bach, Johann Sebastian, 382. 

Bacon, Francis (Lord Verulam) , 169, 187, 

189, 190, 205, 206, 271-273, 276, 280, 281, 

311. 

Bacon, Roger, 92, 125. 
Baillie, Joanna, 457. 
Balder Dead, 506, 522. 
Ballads, 127, 160, 161, 162, 166. 
Barbauld, Anna Letitia, 376. 
Barbour, John, 125, 158. 
Barclay, 164, 173. 
Barons' Wars, The, 279. 
Bartholomew Fair, 259, 280, 306. 
Battle of the Books, The, 344. 
Baxter, Richard, 285, 303. 
Beattie, James, 376, 392. 
Beaumont, Francis, 249, 257, 258, 261, 281, 
285. 

Bede, The Venerable, 37, 43, 49, 50, 178. 
Beethoven, 456. 
Behn, Aphra, 330, 332. 
Bentham, Jeremy, 381, 456. 
Beowulf, 26, 31-34 , 36 , 42-45, 48, 50, 68, 
73, 77, 360, 481, 522. 



527 



528 



INDEX 



Berkeley, George, 352. 
Bernard, St., 75, 90. 
Berners, Dame Juliana, 127. 
Berners, Lord, 193. 
Besant, Sir Walter, 524. 
Bestiary, The, 93. 

Bible, The, 30, 36, 57, 75, 113, 125-127, 145, 
146, 148, 150, 192-196, 206, 229, 251, 273- 
276, 282, 301, 303, 305, 308, 489, 500. 

Biographia Literaria, 427. 

Black, William, 524. 

Blackmore, R. D., 524. 

Blackwood's Magazine, 450, 457, 479. 

Blair, Robert, 375, 379. 

Blake, William, 396, 403, 407-412, 417, 456. 

Blind Harry, 127. 

Boccaccio, 69, 96, 98, 107, 109, 111, 114, 126, 

195, 326. 
Boethius, 40. 
Boiardo, 128. 
Boileau, 318, 331, 335. 
Boke to an Ankoresse, 97. 
Boke to Phyllip Sparowe, 128. 
Book of Martyrs, 186, 195. 
Bossuet, 318, 331. 

Boswell, James, 365, 366, 370, 374, 377, 387. 

Botticelli, 128, 176, 228. 

Brahe, Tycho, 310. 

Brandan, St., Voyage of, 25. 

Brandt, Sebastian, 128. 

Breton, Nicbolas, 281, 285. 

Britannia's Pastorals, 267, 282. 

Britton's Bower of Delights, 209. 

Broken Heart, The, 263,' 283. 

Bronte, Anne, 523. 

Bronte, Charlotte, 450, 482, 523. 

Bronte, Emily, 482, 523. 

Brooke, Arthur, 275. 

Browne, Sir Thomas, 272, 273, 276, 284, 

319, 324, 344. 
Browne, William, 267, 282, 285, 319. 
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 200, 509, 516, 

517 523. 

Browning, Robert, 39, 108, 157, 175, 243, 
268, 455, 463, 465, 466, 484, 505, 516-523. 
Bruce, The, 125, 158. 
Brut, 85, 86, 92. 

Bunyan, John, 138, 139, 303-305, 308, 330, 
475. 

Burgh, Benedict, 192. 
Burke, Edmund, 370, 376, 381, 384. 
Burne- Jones, Sir Edward, 508, 524. 
Burney, Fanny (M'me d'Arblay), 363, 377, 
449. 

Burns, Robert, 129, 159, 165, 271, 396, 403- 

407, 409-412, 417, 456, 488. 
Burton, Robert, 272, 282. 
Butler, Joseph, 344, 381. 
Butler, Samuel, 307, 330. 



Byron, Lord (George Gordon), 224, 228, 
418, 419, 429-433, 437, 441, 443, 444, 446, 
457, 464. 

C 

Csedmon, 37, 38, 42, 80, 150, 294, 297, 376. 

Calverley, C. S., 524. 

Calvin, John, 193. 

Cambrensis, Giraldus, 91. 

Campbell, Thomas, 458. 

Campion, Thomas, 267, 281, 285, 289. 

Canova, 456. 

Canterbury Tales, 40, 58, 101, 103, 110-119, 

126, 132, 133. 
Capgrave, John, 126. 
Carew, Thomas, 268, 283, 285. 
Carlyle, Thomas, 148, 169, 275, 450, 465, 

471, 487-493, 497, 499, 500, 501, 503, 504, 

509, 523. 

Castle of Indolence, The, 388, 392. 
Castle of Otranto, The, 375, 394. 
Catullus, 128. 

Caxton, William, 164, 175, 176, 192. 
Cellini, Benvenuto, 193. 
Cenci, The, 435. 
Cervantes, 279. 

Chapman, George, 207, 214, 257, 280, 285. 
Charlemagne (Epic Cycle) , 44, 45, 68, 90, 
98. 

Chateaubriand, 456. 

Chatterton, Thomas, 377, 392, 396. 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 17, 58. 63, 69, 70, 85, 
89 , 99-136, 139, 140, 144, 153, 156, 157, 
159, 162, 163, 169, 183, 215, 276, 286, 311, 
316, 318, 326. 

Chesterfield, Earl of, 376. 

Chestre, Thomas, 127. 

Childe Harold, 430, 431, 443, 444. 

Christ, The, 39, 42. 

Christ's Victory and Triumph, 268, 282. 
Christabel, 427, 439, 443, 446. 
Chronicles, 40, 59, 91, 97, 116, 126, 193, 

195, 196, 205, 281. 
Cibber, Colley, 332. 
Cicero, 206. 
Cid, The, 92, 98, 282. 
Cimabue, 93, 176. 

Clarendon, Earl of (Edward Hyde), 272, 
354. 

Clarissa Harlowe, 358, 359. 
Cleanness, 124, 132. 

Clough, Arthur Hugh, 295, 498, 504-507, 

509, 510, 523. 
Coleridge, Hartley, 523. 
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 369, 391, 418- 

422, 425-429, 439, 441, 443-446, 451, 452, 

456, 464, 465, 498. 
Colet, John, 178, 192. 
Collier, Jeremy, 328, 332. 



INDEX 



529 



Collins, William, 344, 388-390, 395, 396, 399, 

420, 421. 
Collins, William Wilkie, 523. 
Comedy of Errors, A, 239. 
Compleat Angler, The, 273, 285. 
Comas, 288, 289. 
Conchobar (Celtic hero), 23, 24. 
Confessio Amantis, 125, 133. 
Confessions of an Opium Eater, 453. 
Congreve, William, 327, 332. 
Consolations of Philosophy, On the, 40. 
Constable. Henry, 210, 279, 285. 
Cook, Eliza, 523. 
Copernicus, 173, 193. 
Coriolanus, 245, 247. 
Corneille, 282, 318, 331. 
Cornhill Magazine, The, 495. 
Coverdale, Miles, 193. 
Cowley, Abraham, 283, 285, 319, 320, 392. 
Cowper, William, 377 , 395-400, 413, 421, 

443. 

Crabbe, George, 377. 
Craik, Dinah Muloch, 524. 
Cranmer, 193, 194, 274, 301. 
Crashaw, Richard, 268, 269, 283, 285. 
Cuchullin (Celtic hero) , 21-23, 28, 32. 
Cursor Mundi, 88, 96. 
Cymbeline, 79, 249. 

Cynewulf, 31, 37, 38, 42, 43, 80, 132, 134, 
150, 270, 441. 

D 

Daniel Deronda, 480, 481. 
Daniel, Samuel, 205, 210, 279, 285. 
Dante, 61, 79, 95, 98, 100, 107, 110, 253, 286, 

294, 295, 297, 509. 
Darwin, Charles, 460, 523. 
Davenant, Sir William, 283, 285, 316. 
David, 456. 

David Copperfield, 469, 471, 485. 

Davisoyi's Poetical Rhapsody, 209. 

De Quincey, Thomas, 452, 453, 455, 458. 

De Stael, Madame, 456. 

De Yere, Aubrey, 225. 

Decameron, The, 96, 98, 110. 

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 

The, 380. 
Defense of Poetry, A, 199. 
Defoe, Daniel, 131, 305, 347, 348, 350, 353. 
Dekker, Thomas, 249, 257, 258, 261, 280, 

282, 285. 
Demosthenes, 206. 

Denham, Sir John, 283, 285, 320, 392. 
Descartes, 283. 
Deserted Village, The, 373. 
Deth of Blaunche the Duchesse, The, 108. 
Dickens, Charles, 169, 465, 468-480, 485, 
515, 523. 



Disraeli, Benjamin, 523, 524. 
Divine Comedy, The, 96. 
Dobson, Henry Austin, 524. 
Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 483. 
Dodgson, C. L. (Lewis Carroll), 524. 
Domesday Book, 90. 
Don Juan, 431, 432. 
Don Quixote, 279, 362. 
Donatello, 127. 

Donne, John, 268, 269, 282, 285. 
Douglas, Gavin, 129, 159. 
Dowden, Edward, 245, 525. 
Drapier's Letters, 345. 
Drayton, Michael, 205, 210, 211, 267, 279, 
285. 

Dream of Gerontius, The, 492. 
Dream of John Ball, A, 138, 502. 
Dream of the Rood, The, 31, 38, 42. 
Drummond, William, 267, 282, 285. 
Dryden, John, 313, 314, 316, 319-333, 337, 

338, 342, 343, 346. 
Du Maurier, George, 524. 
Duchess of Malti, The, 262, 263, 282. 
Dunbar, William, 129, 159, 166. 
Dunciad, The, 334, 337, 338, 341, 345, 379. 
Diirer, Albrecht, 192. 



E 

Eadmer, 90. 

Earthly Paradise, The, 117, 135, 511, 522. 
Ecclesiastical History of England, An, 48. 
Ecclesiastical Polity, The, 205, 279. 
Edda, The, 90, 92, 391. 
Edgeworth, Maria, 457. 
Edinburgh Review, 450, 457, 486, 488. 
Edward II., 233, 277. 
Eikon Basilike, 284. 

Elegy in a Country Churchyard, An, 375, 

390, 391, 400, 420. 
Elene, 39, 42. 

Eliot, George, 171, 450, 477-483, 485, 523. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 489. 
Endymion, 438. 
England's Helicon, 209. 
English Humourists, 473. 
Epithalamium, 217, 219, 279. 
Erasmus, 177, 178, 192, 193. 
Eschenbach, Wolfram von, 92. 
Essay on Criticism, 335, 341, 356, 444. 
Essay on Man, 337, 341, 383. 
Etherege, Sir George, 327, 330, 332. 
Euphues, 203, 204, 206, 232, 277. 
Euripides, 245. 
Evelina, 363, 377. 
Evelyn, John, 328, 330. 
Evidences of Christianity , 381, 382. 
Examiner, 'The, 452. 
Excursion, The, 420, 425. 



530 



INDEX 



Exeter Book, 90. 
Exodus, 94. 

F 

Faerie Queene, The, 40, 148, 188, 216-228, 

278, 311, 319, 346, 359, 434. 
Fairfax, Lord, 207. 
Faithful Shepherdess, The, 281, 289. 
Fall of Princes, The, 126, 157, 195. 
Farquhar, Sir John, 327, 332. 
Fates of the Apostles, The, 39. 
Faust, 277, 431. 
Faustus, Dr., 189, 233, 278. 
Fenelon, 332. 

Ferrex and Porrex (Gorboduc), 195, 231, 
241. 

Fielding, Henry, 344, 360-362, 394, 447. 

Finn (Celtic Cycle) , 23, 24, 28, 32, 393. 

Fitzgerald, Edward, 523. 

Fletcher, Giles, 268, 282, 285. 

Fletcher, John, 249, 250, 257, 261, 264, 281, 

285, 289. 
Fletcher, Phineas, 268, 283, 285. 
Floire et Blancheflor, 93, 95. 
Florence of Worcester, 90. 
Ford, John, 257, 263, 273, 283, 285, 318. 
Fors Clavigera, 496. 
Fortescue, Sir John, 127. 
Fox, C. J., 370. 
Foxe, John, 186, 195. 
Freeman, 487, 524. 
French Revolution, The, 489, 503. 
Froissart, Sir John, 58, 124. 
Froude, 487, 524. 
Fuller, Thomas, 272, 284. 

G 

Gaimar, Geoffrey, 90, 91. 

Gainsborough, 376. 

Galileo, 281, 287. 

Gammer Gurton's Needle, 231. 

Gardiner, 487. 

Garrick, David, 344, 367, 368, 370. 

Gascoigne, George, 195. 

Gaskell, Elizabeth, 523. 

Gaioayne (Sir) and the Green Knight, 

124, 132, 147. 
Gay, John, 340. 
Genesis, 94. 

Gentleman' 1 s Magazine, The, 344. 
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 70, 71, 78, 79, 89, 
91. 

Geoffrey of Vinsauf , 96. 
Germ, The, 509, 523. 
Gerusalemme Liberata, 277. 
Gesta Romanorum, 74, 79, 93. 
Gibbon, Edward, 376, 380, 384. 
Gil Bias, 354, 362. 



Giorgione, 192. 
Giotto, 94, 107, 148, 176. 
Gladstone, William Ewart, 525. 
Godwin, William, 382, 383, 433, 456. 
Goethe, 375, 377, 431, 432, 456, 457. 
Golden Legend, The, 74, 75, 95. 
Goldsmith, Oliver, 363, 370, 372-375, 378, 
379. 

Gorboduc (Ferrex and Porrex), 195, 231, 
241. 

Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions, A, 

196, 209. 
Gosson, Stephen, 199, 277. 
Gower, John, 125, 132, 133, 147. 
Grandison, Sir Charles, 358-360, 481. 
Gray, Thomas, 326, 375, 388-391, 394-396, 

399, 400, 409, 420, 421. 
Greene, Robert, 232, 248, 277, 285, 487. 
Greuze, J. B., 375. 
Grimm (the brothers), 457. 
Grocyn, 178, 192. 
Grostete, Robert, 92. 
Grotius, Hugo, 281. 
Grub Street Journal, The, 344. 
Guardian, The, 393. 
Gudrun, Epic of, 91. 
Guizot, 457. 

Gulliver's Travels, 131, 346, 347, 353. 
Gutenberg, 126. 



H 

Habington, William, 269. 

Hakluyt, Richard, 205, 214, 277. 

Hales, Alexander, 92. 

Hallam, Henry, 458. 

Hamlet, 155, 190, 231, 237, 245, 247, 252. 

Handel, 344. 

Handful of Pleasant Delights, 277. 

Handlyng Syime, 98. 

Harding, John, 126. 

Hardy, Thomas, 483, 484, 524. 

Harrington, 207, 279. 

Harrison, 191, 214. 

Havelok the Dane, 86, 90, 95. 

Hawes, Stephen, 128, 157. 

Haydn, 376. 

Hazlitt, William, 452, 457, 464. 

Hegel, 456. 

Heine, 457. 

Hemans, Felicia, 458. 

Henry IV., 240. 

Henry V., 40, 240, 241,255, 319. 

Henry VI., 239. 

Henry VIII., 250. 

Henry Esmond, 473, 474, 476, 485. 

Henry of Huntingdon, 91. 

Henryson, Robert, 127, 159, 166. 

Herbert, George, 268, 269, 276, 283. 



INDEX 



531 



Heroes and Hero Worship, 490, 503. 
Herrick, Robert, 269-271, 276, 284, 285. 
Hesperides, 271, 284. 
Hey wood, John, 19o, 229. 
Heywood, Thomas, 249, 257, 258, 261, 281, 
285. 

Higden.R., 96,124. 

Hind and the Panther, The, 325. 

Hobbes, Thomas, 285, 328, 382. 

Hoccleve, Thomas, 103, 125, 157. 

Hogarth, 355. 

Hogg, 433. 

Holbein, Hans, 164, 165, 193. 

Holinshed, 196, 205. 

Holy Living and Dying, 273, 284. 

Holy Maidenhood, The, 94. 

Holy and Profane State, The, 272. 

Homer, 42, 69, 171, 207, 214, 280, 313, 336, 

341, 377, 398. 
Homilies, 97. 
Hood, Thomas, 523. 

Hooker, Richard, 187, 189, 205, 206, 215, 

271, 280. 
Horn, King, 86, 91, 95. 
Hous of Fame, The, 112. 
Hudibras, 307, 330. 
Hughes, Thomas, 504, 524. 
Hugo, Victor, 57, 457. 
Humboldt, 457. 

Hume, David, 344, 380, 381, 383, 384. 
Hunt, Holman, 508. 
Hunt, Leigh, 452, 524. 
Hyperion, 438, 440. 

I 

Idler, The, 368. 

Idylls of the King, 76, 514, 522. 
Tl Penseroso, 287', 288, 297. 
Iliad, The, 334, 336. 
Imaginary Conversations, 454. 
Imitation of Christ, The, 125, 273. 
In Memoriam, 39, 397 , 436 , 513, 514, 
522. 

Ingelow, Jean, 524. 

J 

James I. (Scotland), 125, 126, 158. 

Jameson, Anna, 524. 

Jeffrey, Francis, 450, 451, 458, 504. 

John of Capua, 93. 

John of Oxenedes, 93. 

John of Salisbury, 91. 

John of Trevisa, 124. 

Johnson, Samuel. 313, 314, 363, 365-377, 
379, 387, 388, 396, 403, 428, 451. 

Jones, Inigo, 260, 282. 

Jonson, Ben, 187, 218, 233, 249, 257-261, 
264, 280, 285, 289, 306, 311, 327, 369. 



Joseph of Exeter, 92. 
Judith, 38, 42. 
Juliana, 39. 

Julius Csesar, 245, 246, 252, 255. 
Jusserand, J. J., 80, 82, 92, 157. 
Juvenal, 368. 

K 

Kant, 377. 

Keats, John, 224, 228, 268, 418^20, 429, 

436-441, 451, 452, 457, 464, 505, 508. 
Keble, John, 524. 
Kempis, Thomas a, 125. 
King John, 240. 
King's Quair, The, 126, 159. 
King's Tragedy, The, 159. 
Kingsley, Charles, 482, 509, 523. 
Kipling, Rudyard, 525. 
Klopstock, 344. 

Kyd, Thomas, 231, 233, 278, 285. 

L 

La Fontaine, 330. 

La Rochefoucauld, 330. 

Lady of the Lake, The, 446, 455. 

Lamartine, 456. 

Lamb, Charles, 89, 273, 426, 451, 452, 455, 

456, 464. 
Lamb, Mary, 451, 452. 
Land of Cockayne, The, 100. 
Landor, "Walter Savage, 452-456. 
Lanfranc, 90. 
Lang, Andrew, 525. 

Langland, William, 124, 125, 130-145, 147, 

163, 182, 186, 221, 304, 308. 
Latimer, Hugh, 186, 193, 194. 
Latini, Brunetto, 92. 
Law, William, 395. 
Lay of the Last Minstrel, The, 446. 
Layamon, 70, 71, 85, 89, 92. 
Lays of Ancient Rome, 487. 
Lear, King, 79, 235, 245, 246, 255, 258, 262. 
Lee, Nathaniel, 315, 331, 332. 
Legende of Good Women, A, 106, 111. 
Legends of the Saints, 100. 
Leibnitz, 382. 
Leopardi, 457. 
Lessing, 375. 
Lever, Charles, 523. 
Leviathan, 285. 

Lewes, George Henry, 478, 479, 524. 
Life of Johnson, 365, 377. 
Linacre, 178, 192. 
Lindsav, Sir David, 193. 
Lippo Lippi, Fra, 127, 149, 157. 
Livy, 130. 
Lobeira, 124. 



532 



INDEX 



Locke, John, 328, 332, 382. 
Lodge, Thomas, 204, 232, 248, 279. 
Lovelace, Sir Richard, 269, 270, 284, 285. 
Love's Labor's Lost, 239, 252. 
Lowell, James Russell, 221, 227, 427. 
Luther, 192. 

Lycidas, 288, 296, 297, 436, 443. 
Lydgate, John, 125, 157, 195. 
Lyly, John, 203, 232, 239, 277, 285. 
Lyrical Ballads, 420-422, 456. 
Lytton, Bulwer, 523. 
Lytton (the younger), 524. 

M 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 450, 486- 

488, 523. 
Macbeth, 245, 255, 319. 
Macdonald, George, 483, 524. 
MacFlecknoe, 324, 330, 338. 
Machiavelli, 193. 
Mackenzie, 363. 
Macpherson, 23, 24, 375, 393. 
Maid's Tragedy, The, 281. 
Malebranctie, 331. 

Malory, Sir Thomas, 71, 73, 74, 76, 192, 

514, 522. 
Malthus, 457. 

Mandeville, Sir John, 124, 130, 131, 147, 
181. 

Mannyng, Robert, 96. 

Map, Walter, 71, 79, 91. 

Margaritone d'Arezzo, 93. 

Marie de France, 79, 92. 

Marius, the Epicurean, 502. 

Marlowe, Christopher, 189, 233, 234, 239, 

248, 261, 277 , 285. 
Marmion, 159, 446, 455. 
Marryat, Frederick, 523. 
Marston, John, 281, 285. 
Martineau, Harriet, 523. 
Marvell, Andrew, 320. 
Massinger, Philip, 257, 258, 263, 282, 

285. 

Maurice, Frederick Denison, 428, 465, 509, 
523. 

Measure for Measure, 245. 
Merchant of Venice, The, 240, 241, 255. 
Meredith, George, 483, 484, 524. 
Merivale, Charles, 524. 
Merry Wives of Windsor, The, 153, 240, 
241. 

Meung, Jean de, 95. 
Michael of Northgate, 97. 
Michael the Scot, 92. 
Middlemarch, 480, 481. 
Middleton, Thomas, 249, 257, 281, 285. 
Midsummer Night's Dream, A, 235, 240, 
241, 243, 251, 255, 258, 336. 



Mill on the Floss, The, 479, 480. 
Mill, John Stuart, 465, 523. 
Millais, 507, 524. 

Milton, John, 38, 42, 81, 84, 89, 116, 169, 
184, 267, 272, 276, 284, 286-301, 303, 305, 
314-316, 319-321, 324-327, 336, 376, 395, 
405, 486, 513. 

Minot, Laurence, 88, 98. 

Mirrour for Magistrates, A, 195, 231. 

Mirrour of Life, The, 125. 

Mitford, Mary Russell, 458. 

Modern Painters, 494, 495. 

Moliere, 318, 330, 331. 

Monstrelet, 125. 

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 340. 
Montague, Charles, 331. 
Montaigne, 273, 277. 
Montesquieu, 382. 
Moore, Thomas, 457. 
More, Hannah, 457. 

More, Sir Thomas, 178-182, 184-186, 276, 

346, 434. 
Morley, Henry, 525. 
Morley, John, 525. 
Morris, Lewis, 524. 

Morris, William, 117, 135, 138, 391, 502- 

504, 507, 508, 511, 512, 522, 523. 
Morte d' Arthur, 224. 
Mozart, 376. 

Much Ado About Nothing, 240, 241, 243. 
Mysteries of Udolpho, The, 394. 
Mystery of the Ten Virgins, 90. 

N 

Nash, Thomas, 233, 278, 285. 

Neale, J. M., 524. 

Neckham, Alexander, 92. 

New Atlantis, The, 272, 276, 280. 

Newcomes, The, 473, 485. 

Newman, John Henry, 275, 428, 465, 492, 

493, 498, 503, 523. 
News from Nowhere, 180, 502. 
Newton, Sir Isaac, 331. 
Nicholas Nickleby, 470. 
Nicholas of Guildford, 94. 
Niebelungen Lied, 34, 44, 68, 91, 98. 
Night Thoughts, 344, 379. 
North, Christopher, 450. 
North, Sir Thomas, 206, 213, 245, 277. 
Novum Organum, 271, 280. 

O 

Occam, William of, 96. 
Odyssey, 336. 
Oliphant, Mrs., 524. 
Oliver Twist, 465, 470. 
Olney Hymns, 397. 



INDEX 



533 



Ordericus Vitalis, 91. 

Orlando Furioso, 192, 279. 

Orm, 86, 92. 

Ormulum, 86, 92. 

Orosius, 40. 

Ossian, 23-25, 28, 393. 

Othello, 245. 

Otway, Thomas, 327, 331, 332. 
Overbury, Sir Thomas, 282, 306. 
Ovid, 101, 206. 

Owl and the Nightingale, The, 94. 
P 

Paine, Thomas, 381, 383, 456. 
Paley, William, 381-383, 456. 
Pamela, 357, 358, 360. 
Paradise Lost, 292-297, 300, 314, 330, 336, 
354. 

Paradise of Dainty Devices, The, 196, 209. 
Paradise Regained, 296. 
Parlement of Foules, The, 103, 111. 
Pascal, 330. 

Paston Letters, The, 126. 
Pastoral Care, 40. 
Pater, Walter, 502, 503, 524. 
Patience, 124,132. 
Pauline, 465, 505, 518. 
Pearl, The, 124, 132. 
Pecock, Reginald, 126, 158. 
Peele, George, 232, 248, 277, 285. 
Pendennis, 473. 
Pepys, Samuel, 328-330. 
Percy's Reliques, 375, 392. 
Pericles, 249, 255. 
Pericles and Aspasia, 454. 
Persian Eclogues, 389. 
Perugino, 128. 

Petrarch, 96, 98, 107, 182, 183, 185, 198. 

Phillips, Kate, 330. 

Phoenix, The, 37. 

Phoenix's Nest, The, 209. 

Pickwick Papers, The, 465, 470. 

Piers Plowman, The Vision concerning , 

124, 133-144. 
Piers Plowman's Crede, 125. 
Pilgrim's Progress, The, 138, 303-305, 330, 

346. 

Plato, 171, 178, 185, 220. 
Plautus, 239. 

Pleasures of the Imagination, 375, 379. 

Plutarch's Lives, 206, 213, 245, 277. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 453. 

Poema Morale, 85, 91. 

Polychronicon. 98, 124. 

Polyolbion, 205, 267, 279. 

Pope, Alexander, 313, 314, 319-321 , 333-343, 
345, 348, 350, 355, 359, 365, 373, 381, 383, 
387, 390, 398, 403, 410, 438, 444. 



Porter, Jane, 457, 458. 
Prayer Book, The, 186, 194, 196, 274, 347. 
Prelude, The, 397, 413-417, 423, 424. 
Prick of Conscience, The, 97. 
Prior, Matthew, 331. 
Procter, Adelaide A., 523. 
Procter, Bryan Waller (Barry Cornwall) , 
523. 

Prometheus Unbound, 420, 435, 440, 443. 
Prothalamium, 218, 278. 
Proverbs of Hendyng , 96. 
Punch 523 

Purple Island, The, 268, 283. 
Pusey, 465, 523. 
Puttenham, George, 204, 278. 



Q 

Quarles, Francis, 268, 283, 285. 
Quarterly Review, The, 450, 451, 457. 



R 

Rabelais, 193, 347. 

Racine, 318, 330, 332. 

Radcliffe, Mrs. Anne, 394, 450, 456. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 173, 187, 205, 213, 215, 

217, 219, 221, 277, 279. 
Ralph Roister Doister, 193, 231. 
Rambler, The, 368. 
Ramsay, Allan, 383. 
Rape of Lucrece, The, 239. 
Rape of the Lock, The, 319, 335-337, 341. 
Raphael, 176, 192. 
Rasselas, 369, 379. 
Reade, Charles, 482, 523. 
Rehearsal, The, 323, 329, 331. 
Religio Laid, 325. 
Religio Medici, 273, 284. 
Rembrandt, 228. 
Republic, The, 185. 

Reynard the Fox (Beast epic), 70, 91, 95, 

101 , 129. 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 370, 376. 
Ricardo, David, 457. 
Richard II.. 240. 
Richard III., 240. 
Richard Feverel, 483, 484. 
Richard of Bury, 96. 
Richard the Redeless, 125. 
Richardson, Samuel, 344, 357-364, 447. 
Ring and the Book, The, 519. 
Rivals, The, 373, 376. 
Robbia, Luca della, 126. 
Robert of Gloucester, 96. 
Robertson, William, 380. 
Robinson Crusoe, 131, 347, 348. 



534 



INDEX 



Robinson, Ralph, 180, 192. 
Roger of Hovedeu, 92. 
Roger of Wendover, 92. 
Roland, The Song of, 44-48, 67, 68, 73, 90, 
481. 

Rolle, Richard, 97. 

Romance of the Rose, The, 58, 63, 93, 105, 
108, 129. 

Romeo and Juliet, 189, 235, 240, 241, 255. 

Romuey, 376. 

Romola, 171, 479, 480, 485. 

Rosalind, 204, 279. 

Rossetti, Christina, 516, 524. 

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 159, 200, 268,466, 

507-509, 512, 522, 523. 
Rousseau, 359, 375, 383. 
Rowe, Nicholas, 332. 
Rowley, William, 282, 285. 
Rubens, Peter Paul, 281. 
Ruskin, John, 147, 148, 275, 493-498, 500, 

501, 504, 508, 524. 
Rymer, Thomas, 317, 331. 

S 

Sackville, 195, 231. 

Saints' Everlasting Rest, The, 285, 303. 
Saintsbury, 88. 
Samson Agonistes, 296. 
Sanazzaro, 128, 129. 
Sand, George, 450. 

Sartor Resartus, 465, 489, 490, 503, 504. 

Savonarola, 128, 129. 

Scenes of Clerical Life, 479. 

Schelling, 456. 

Schiller, 377, 427, 456. 

School for Scandal, The, 373, 376. 

Schoolmaster, The, 194, 203. 

Schopenhauer, 457. 

Schubert, 457. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 159, 363, 394, 418, 445- 

449, 454, 455, 457, 461, 485, 494. 
Scotus, Duns, 93. 
Seasons, The, 387, 388. 
Seneca, 231. 

Sentimental Journey, The, 362. 
Settle, Elkanah, 331, 332. 
Seven Lamps of Architecture, The, 494. 
Shadwell, Thomas, 330, 332. 
Shaftesbury, 352. 

Shakespeare, William, 76, 79, 81, 84, 89, 
149, 155, 169, 183, 184, 187, 190, 199, 200, 
204, 206-208, 210-212, 215, 218, 230-262, 
273, 276, 279, 281, 285, 287, 311, 314, 316, 
317, 319, 321, 336, 359, 364, 395, 431, 440, 
443, 448, 452, 476, 509, 514. 

She Stoops to Conquer, 373. 

Shelley, Mary, 433, 457. 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 31, 39, 104, 199, 



219, 224, 228, 263, 352, 391, 418-420 , 429, 

431-437 , 441, 443, 444, 452, 457, 462, 464, 

505, 510, 513, 518. 
Shenstone, William, 344, 392. 
Shepherd's Calendar, The, 186, 188, 190, 

203, 206, 216, 219, 277, 339, 387. 
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 373, 376, 378. 
Ship of Fools, The, 164, 173. 
Shirley, James, 257, 285. 
Shoemaker's Holidaij, A, 261, 264, 281. 
Shorthouse, John Henry, 269, 524. 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 187, 197-204, 210-212, 

214-216, 219, 221, 244, 279, 285, 360, 395, 

444. 

Silas Marner, 479, 485. 
Silex Scintillans, 269, 284. 
Simeon of Durham, 91. 
Skelton, John, 128, 164. 
Smith, Adam, 376, 381. 
Smith, Sidney, 450. 

Smollett, Tobias George, 362, 375, 380, 394. 

Songs of Experience, 408-410. 

Songs of Innocence, 408-410. 

Sonnets, 178, 179, 189, 190, 198, 200, 202, 

209-212, 217, 243-245, 279, 290-292, 509, 

516. 

Sophocles, 245. 

Sordello, 93. 

Soules Ward, The, 93. 

Southey, Robert, 418, 429, 455, 456. 

Spectator, The, 350-353, 357, 458. 

Speculum Meditantis, 125, 133. 

Spencer, Herbert, 478, 524. 

Spenser, Edmund, 148, 169, 186-188, 195, 
199, 200, 205, 207, 210-212, 214-228, 236, 
244, 268, 276, 278, 285 , 286, 293, 297, 304, 
308, 316, 317, 319, 334, 339, 359, 387, 392, 
395, 439, 493. 

Spinoza, 330. 

Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, 525. 

Statius, 117. 

Steel Glass, The, 195. 

Steele, Richard, 343, 348-353, 395. 

Stephen, Leslie, 367, 525. 

Sterne, Laurence, 362-364, 375. 

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 446, 483, 524. 

Stoiies of Venice, 494. 

Stowe, John, 281. 

Strauss, 478. 

Strickland, Agnes, 523. 

Suckling, Sir John, 269, 270, 284, 285. 

Surrey, Earl of (Henry Howard) , 182-186, 

194, 195, 209, 215. 
Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 375. 
Swift, Jonathan, 313, 338, 340, 342-348, 

350-353, 357, 396. 
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 39, 466, 507, 

510, 511, 524. 
Symonds, John Addington, 525. 



INDEX 535 



T 

Taine, 359. 

Tale of a Tub, The, 344. 

Tale of Two Cities, A, 471, 485. 

Tales from Shakespeare, 452. 

Talleyrand, 457. 

Tamburlaine, 233, 234, 277. 

Taming of the Shrew, The, 240, 241. 

Task, The, 377, 397, 398, 413, 420, 422. 

Tasso, 194, 207, 225, 228, 277, 278. 

Tate, Nahimi, 331. 

Tatler, The, 350, 354. 

Taylor, Jeremy, 272, 273, 284, 319, 344. 

Tempest, The, 249, 251, 252, 316, 336. 

Temple, Sir William, 331, 343. 

Temple, The, 269, 283. 

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 31, 39, 76, 84, 88, 
108, 132, 169, 205, 213, 220, 295, 388, 397, 
465, 466, 505, 512-517, 522, 523. 

Thackeray, William Makepeace, 472-478, 
480, 482, 485, 523. 

Theatre of Voluptuous Worldlings, A, 195. 

Theocritus, 334. 

Theologia Germanica, 97. 

Thistle and the Rose, The, 129, 159. 

Thomas of Ely, 90. 

Thomas of Ercildoune, 95, 125. 

Thomas of Hales, 94. 

Thomson, James, 228, 344, 387, 388, 390, 399, 
421. 

Thornton Romances, The, 126. 

Thorwaldsen, 457. 

Tillotson, John, 331. 

Timon of Athens, 245, 249, 254. 

Tintoretto, 228. 

Tiptoft, John, 192. 

Titian, 193, 228. 

Titus Andronicus, 239, 255. 

Tolstoi, 148. 

Tom Jones, 361. 

Tottel' s Miscellany, 183, 194, 195, 209. 
Tourneur, Cyril, 249, 257, 262, 282, 285. 
Toxophilus, 194, 203. 
Trelawney, 433. 
Tristram Shandy, 362. 
Trivet, Nicholas, 96. 
Troilus and Cressida, 111, 128, 245, 254. 
Trollope, Anthony, 482, 523. 
Troy Cycle, The, 68, 69, 92, 98, 105, 124, 
125, 175. 

Tuatha-De-Danann (Celtic Cycle), 23. 
Tupper, Martin Farquhar, 523. 
Twelfth Night, 240-243. 
Tivo Gentlemen of Verona, 239. 
Tyndale, William, 193, 274. 
Tyndall, J., 525. 

U 

Udall, Nicholas, 193, 231. 



Uhland, 456. 

Utopia, The, 179-182, 185, 192, 276, 346. 
V 

Vanbrugh, Sir John, 327, 332. 

Vandyck, 284, 317. 

Vanity Fair, ±T6, 474. 

Vanity of Human Wishes, The, 368, 379. 

Vaughan, Henry, 269, 270, 284, 285. 

Velasquez, 285. 

Venus and Adonis, 239. 

Veronese, Paul, 198, 277. 

Vicar of Wakefield, The, 373, 374, 449. 

Villiers, George (Duke of Buckingham), 

323, 330, 332. 
Villon, Francois, 126. 
Vinci, Leonardo da, 128. 
Virgil, 42, 101, 129, 157, 171, 184, 206, 225, 

313, 326, 334, 335. 
Visio Pauli, 94. 
Vita Nuova, La, 96, 509. 
Volksbuch, 277. 
Volpone, 259, 280. 
Volsungs, Story of the, 34, 43. 
Voltaire, 375, 383. 
Voragine, Jacobus de, 95. 
Vox Clamantis, 125, 133. 

W 

Wace, 70, 71, 85, 92. 
Wagner, 354. 

Waller, Edmund, 284, 285, 319, 320, 392. 

Walpole, Horace, 375, 390, 394. 

Walsh, William, 334. 

Waltheof Saga, The, 91. 

Walton, Izaak, 272, 273, 276, 285. 

Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 524. 

Warton, Thomas, 376. 

Watteau, J. A., 354. 

Watts, G. F., 524. 

Watts, Isaac, 383. 

Waverley Novels, The, 446, 447. 

Webbe, 204. 

Weber, 457. 

Webster, John, 249, 257, 262, 264, 281, 
285. 

Wesley (the brothers), 344, 395. 
Westminster Revieio, The, 450. 
Whistler, J., 525. 
William of Lorris, 93. 
William of Malmesbury, 79, 91. 
William of Nassington, 125. 
William of Poitiers, 90. 
William of Shoreham, 97. 
William of Waddington, 96. 
William Wallace, 127. 
Winter's Tale, A, 249. 
Wireker, Nigel, 92. 



536 



INDEX 



Wither, George, 268, 283, 285. 
Wogelweide, Walther von der, 91. 
Wooing of Our Lord, The, 93. 
Wordsworth, William, 31, 39, 81, 132, 147, 

169, 174, 243, 250, 270, 291, 390, 393, 397, 

413-429, 441, 443-445, 448, 451, 453, 456, 

464, 498, 512. 
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 182-186, 194, 195, 209, 

215. 



Wycherley, William, 327, 331, 332, 334. 
Wyclif, John, 113, 125, 137, 144-148, 163, 
174, 186, 274, 493. 

Y 

Yonge, Charlotte M., 524. 
Young, Edward, 314, 379. 



INDEX II 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES 



Abbott, E. A.: Shakespearean Grammar, 
255. 

Adams, Maurice: Introduction to Utopia 
(Camelot Edition) , 185. 

Ainger, Alfred : Life of Lamb, 455; Ten- 
nyson, 522. 

Allen, Grant : Anglo-Saxon Britain, 42 ; 
Early Britain, 42. 

Arber Reprints, The, 185, 202, 212, 213, 329. 

Arnold, Matthew: Culture and Anarchy, 
308; Essays in Criticism, 297 , 399,442, 
443; Literature and Dogma, 308; On 
the Study of Celtic Literature, 26, 47 ; 
Selections from Wordsioorth, 442. 

Arnold, Thomas : English Works of Wy- 
clif, 147. 

Ashton, John: Social Life in the Age of 
Queen Anne, 353. 



B 

Bagehot, Walter: Essays, 442, 443, 485, 
503, 521, 522; Literary Studies, 442. 

Bates, Katherine Lee : Ballad Book, 165 ; 
English Religious Drama, 154, 155. 

Bayne, Peter: Lessons from my Masters, 
Carlyle, Ruskin, 503. 

Bede, The Venerable : Ecclesiastical His- 
tory, 41, 43, 50. 

Beers, H. A. : A History of English Ro- 
manticism in the Eighteenth Century, 
399; Coleridge, Prose Extracts, 442. 

Bellamy, Edward: Looking Backward, 
185. 

Bennett, John: Master Skylark, 255. 
Berdoe, Edward: Browning Cyclopsedia, 
522. 

Birrell, Augustine : BoswelVs Life of 

Johnson, 374. 
Black, William : Judith Shakespeare, 255 ; 

Life of Goldsmith, 374. 
Blackie, J. S. : Life of Burns, 410. 



Blades, William: Biography and Typog- 
raphy of William Caxton, 176 ; Life and 
Typography of William Caxton, 176. 

Blind, M. : George Eliot, 485. 

Bos worth and Waring : Translation of 
the Gospels, 147. 

Boyle, G. D. : The Great Rebellion, 276. 

Brandes, G. : William Shakespeare, A 
Critical Study, 255. 

Brandl, Alois: S. T. Coleridge and the 
English Romantic School, 442. 

Bright, William: Anglo-Saxon Reader, 
43; Early English Church History, 41, 
43. 

Brooke, Stopford, 41, 42, 43: English 
Literature from the Beginning to the 
Norman Conquest, 41 ; History of Early 
English Literature, 41 ; Milton, 296 ; 
Selections from Shelley, 442; Tenny- 
son, His Art and Relation to Modern 
Life, 522; Theology in the English 
Poets, 399. 419. 

Browne, G. F. : The Venerable Bede, 50. 

Browning, O. : Life of George Eliot, 485. 

Broioning Society Papers, 522. 

Buchanan, Robert, 27. 

Buddensieg, Rudolf : John Wyclif, Patriot 
and Reformer, 147. 

Bullen, A. H. : Davison's Poetical Rhap- 
sody, 213; England' 's Helicon, 213; Lyr- 
ics from Elizabethan Dramatists, 213; 
Lyrics from Elizabethan Roma)ices, 
213 ; Lyrics from Elizabethan Song 
Books, 213. 

Burckhardt, Jacob: Renaissance in Italy , 
The, 176. 



Caine, Hall: Life of Coleridge, 442 ; Son- 
nets of Three Centuries, 213. 

Campbell, J. F. : Popular Tales of the West 
Highlands, 27. 

Campbell, J. D. : Life of Coleridge, 442. 



537 



538 



INDEX 



Carlyle, Thomas, 374, 410; Heroes and 
Hero-Worship, 255 ; Reminiscences, 504 ; 
Sartor Resartus, 504. 

Carpenter, F. I. : English Lyric Poetry, 
213. 

Century Dictionary, The, 89. 
Champney, A. C. : History of English, 89. 
Chapman, J. J. : Emerson and Other Es- 
says, 522. 

Child, F. J.: English and Scottish Popu- 
lar Ballads, 165, 166. 

Church, Dean R. W. : Introduction to 
Clarendon Press Edition of Ecclesias- 
tical Polity, 213; Life of Bacon, 212; 
Life of Spenser, 227 ; Oxford Movement, 
The, 503. 

Coleridge, S. T. : Notes and Lectures on 
the Plays of Shakespeare, 254. 

Collingwood, W. G. : Life of Ruskin, 503. 

Colvin, Sidney: Life of Keats, 443 ; Life 
of Landor, 455 ; Selections from Landor, 
455. 

Cone, Helen Gray: The Accolade, in Obe- 
ron and Puck, 76. 

Cook, A. S. : Translation of Judith, 42. 

Cooke, George: George Eliot, a Critical 
Study, 485. 

Corroyer, E. T. : Gothic Architecture, 63. 

Corson, Hiram: Introduction to Brown- 
ing, 522. 

Courthope, W. J. : History of English Po- 
etry, 191 ; Life of Addison, 353. 

Craik, G. L. : English Prose Selections, 
276; English of Shakespeare, The, 255. 

Crane, Walter : Shepherd's Calendar (il- 
lustrated) , 227. 

Creighton, Mandell : Age of Elizabeth, 
The, 190. 

Cross, J. W. : Life of George Eliot, 485. 
Cross, W. L. : Development of the English 

Novel, The, 364. 
Crowe, Martha Foote: Minor Sonnet 

Cycles, 213. 
Cutts, E. L. : Parish Priests and their 

People in the Middle Ages in England, 

147; Scenes and Characters of the 

Middle Ages, 147. 

D 

De Vere, Aubrey, 27: Essays, Chiefly on 
Poetry, 227, 442; Legends of St. Pat- 
rick, 28 ; Legends of the Saxon Saints, 43. 

Dennis, John: Age of Pope, The, 341. 

Denton, William: England, in the Fif- 
teenth Century, 165. 

Dictionary of National Biography, 212, 
234, 264, 443, 503, 522. 

Diderot, 385. 



Dobson, Austin : Lives of — Fielding, 364, 
Goldsmith, 374, Steele, 353, Walpole, 
399. 

Dowden, Edward, 443, 485, 522; French 
Revolution and Literature, The, 419; 
Life of Shelley, 442; Scientific Move- 
ment and Literature, The, 467 ; Shake- 
speare, his Mind and Art, 254, 255; 
Shakespeare Primer, 254; Studies in 
Literature, 419, 442, 467; Transcripts 
and Studies, 227, 442 ; Victorian Litera- 
ture, 467. 

Doyle, A. Conan: The White Company, 
63. 

E 

Early English Text Society Publications, 

63, 76, 89. 
Eliot, George : Romola, 171. 
Emerson, P. H. : Welsh Fairy Tales, 27. 
Emerton, Ephraim: Life of Erasmus, 184. 
Encyclopedia Britannica, 47, 176, 213. 
Evans, Sebastian, 27 : High History of the 

Holy Grail, The, 76. 

F 

Fairholt, F. W. : Costume in England, 
63. 

Fleay, F. G. : Biographical Chronicle of 
the English Drama, A, 234, 264. 

Forster, John : Life of Dickens, 485. 

Foxbourne, H. R. : Sir Philip Sidney, 202. 

Freeman, E. A. : The Norman Conquest, 
41, 47. 

Froissart, Sir John : Chronicles, 58, 63. 
Froude, J. A.: History of England, 1§Q); 

Lives of — Bunyan, 308, Carlyle, 503, 

Erasmus, 184. 
Furness, H. H. : Variorum Shakespeare, 

254. 

G 

Gardiner, S. R. : The First Two Stuarts, 
etc., 275. 

Garnett, J. M. : Translation of Beowulf, 

42; Translation of Judith, 42. 
Garnett, Richard: Age of Dry den, The, 

329 ; Lives of— Carlyle, 503, Milton, 296, 

Shelley, 442. 
Gates, Lewis : Essays, 503 ; Introduction to 

Selections from Arnold, 503; Selections 

from Newman, 503. 
Geddes, Patrick, 27. 

Geoffrey of Monmouth : Historia Regum 

Britannise, 76, 89. 
George, A. J. : Wordsworth's Prelude, 419. 
Gilchrist, Alexander: Life of Blake, 410. 



INDEX 



539 



Giles, J. A: Geoffrey of Monmouth, 89; 

William of Malmesbury , 89. 
Goadby, Edwin : England of Shakespeare, 

The, 190. 
Golden Legend, The, 76. 
Gollancz, Israel: Translation of the 

Christ, 42. 

Gosse, Edmund : Eighteenth Century 
Literature, 318; From Shakespeare to 
Pope, 318; Jacobean Poets, The, 264, 
275; Life of Gray, 399; Modern Eng- 
lish Literature, 461 '; Prose and Verse of 
Gray, The, 399. 

Green, John Richard : History of the Eng- 
lish People {illustrated) , 63 ; Making of 
England, The, 41 ; Short History of the 
English People, 41, 147, 184, 190, 275. 

Grein, C. W. M. : Bibliothek der Angel- 
sachsischen Poesie, 42. 

Grosart, Alexander : Sidney, 202; Spenser, 
227. 

Guest, Lady Charlotte : Mabinogion, The, 
27, 76. 

Gunimere, F. B. : Ballads, 165, 166; 

Germanic Origins, 41, 43; Poetics, 213. 
Gurteen, S. H. : Epic of the Fall of Man, 

42. 

H 

Hall, John L. : Translation of Beowulf, 
42. 

Halliwell-Phillips, J. O. : Outlines of the 

Life of Shakespeare, 254 ; Syr Perceval, 

Thornton Romances, 76. 
Hancock, A. E. : French Revolution and 

the English Poets, The, 419. 
Hannay, David: Later Renaissance, The, 

190. 

Hanscom, Elizabeth Dering: Argument 
of the Vision of Piers Plowman, 147. 

Harper, G. V. : Holy Grail, The, 76. 

Harrison, Frederic : Victorian Literature, 
467. 

Harrison, William: England (fromHolin- 
shed), 190, 191. 

Haweis, Mrs. : Chaucer for Schools, 119. 

Hazlitt, William: Characters of Shake- 
speare's Plays, 255 ; Dramatic Litera- 
ture of the Age of Elizabeth, 264. 

Henley, W. F. : Bums, 410; Tudor Trans- 
lations, 213. 

Herford, C. H. : Age of Wordsworth, The, 
442 ; Shepherd's Calendar, The, 227. 

Hill, George Birbeck: Rasselas, 374; Se- 
lected Essays of Johnson, 374. 

Hill, Georgiana : History of English Dress, 
A, 63. 

Hobson, J. H. : Johyi Ruskin, Social Re- 
former, 503. 



Hughes, Thomas : Tom Brown at Ruqby, 
504. 

Hugo, Victor: Notre Dame de Paris, 63. 
Hull, Eleanor : Cuchullin Saga, The, 21, 
22, 27, 28. 

Hutton, R. H. : Essays, 442, 443, 521, 522 ; 
Lives of —Newman, 503, Scott, 455; 
Modern Guides, 485; Studies in Litera- 
ture, 485. 

Huxley, Thomas : Life of Hume, 384. 

Hyde, Douglas: Beside the Fire, 27; Lit- 
erary History of Ireland, A, 26; Story 
of Early Gaelic Literature, The, 26. 

J 

Jacobs, Joseph : Book of Wonder Voyages, 
The, 27; Celtic Fairy Tales, 27; More 
Celtic Fairy Tales, 27. 

Jespersen, Jens O. H. : Progress in Lan- 
guage, etc., 89. 

Jessop, Augustus : Coming of the Friars, 
The, 147. 

Jewett, Sarah Orne : Story of the Nor- 
mans, The, 47. 

Johnson Club Papers, 374. 

Johnson, Samuel : Lives of the Poets, 297, 
329, 341. 

Joyce, P. W. : Old Celtic Romances, 27. 

Jusserand, J. J: English Novel in the 
Time of Shakespeare, The, 191; Eng- 
lish Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages, 
63 ; Literary History of the English Peo- 
ple, A, 26, 41, 81, 82; Piers Plotoman, 
147 ; Romance of a King's Life, The, 165. 

K 

Keble, John: Hooker, 213. 
Kemble, J. M. : Translation of Beowulf, 
42. 

Ker, W. P. : Epic and Romance, 76. 

Kingsley, Charles: Hereivard the Wake, 
48 ; Westioard, Ho ! 190. 

Knight, William: Rossetti, 521; Words- 
worth, 442. 

L 

Lamb, Charles: Essays of Elia, 329; 

Selections from the Old Dramatists, 264. 
Lang, Andrew: Letters to Dead Authors, 

485. 

Langland, William : Piers Ploioman, 63. 

Lanier, Sidney: Boy's Mabinogion, The, 
27 ; English Novel and the Principle of 
its Development, The, 364. 

Lechler, G. T. : John Wyclif and His Eng- 
lish Precursors, 147. 

Lecky, W. E. H. : History of England in 



540 



INDEX 



the Eighteenth Century, The, 318, 353; 

Life of Gibbon, 384. 
Lee, Sidney : Life of Shakespeare, 254, 255. 
Lockhart, J. G. : Life of Scott, 455. 
Lounsbury, T. R. : History of the English 

Language, The, 89; Studies in Chaucer, 

119. 

Lowell, J. R. : Among my Books, 227, 
329, 442; Essays on—Carlyle, 503, Cole- 
ridge, 442, Gray, 399, Keats, 442, Words- 
worth, 442; My Study Windows, 119, 
341 ; Old English Dramatists, 234. 

Lupton, J. H. : Lives of Jehan Vitrier and 
John Colet, 185; Scholar's Edition of 
Utopia, 185. 



M 

Mabie, H. W. : Life of Shakespeare, 254. 
Macaulay, T. B. ; Essays, 213, 297, 308, 329, 
353, 374, 442 ; History of England, 319. 
Mackail, J. W. : Life of Morris, 521. 
Macleod, Fiona, 27. 

Madden, Sir Frederick : Layamon's Brut, 
89. 

Madge, H. D. : Selections from the Golden 

Legend, 76. 
Malory, Sir Thomas: Morte d' Arthur, 73, 

74, 76. 
Mangan, J. C, 27. 

Manly, J. M. : Specimens of the P re- 
Shakespearean Drama, 155, 234. 

Manning, Annie : Household of Sir Thomas 
Moore, The, 185. 

Marsh, G. P. : Lectures on the English 
Language, 89. 

Marzials, F. T. : Life of Dickens, 485. 

Masson, David: British Novelists and 
their Styles, 485: Life of Milton, 276, 
296 ; Three Devils, 297. 

Masterman, J. H. B. : Age of Milton, The, 
276, 296. 

Matthew-Pennington, J. D. : J. Wyclif, 
his Life, Time, and Teaching, 147. 

McCarthy, Justin: History of Our Own 
Times, A, 467. 

Mediaeval Scottish Poetry, 165. 

Meyer, Kuno : Voyage of Bran, The, 27. 

Meyuell, Mrs. : John Ruskin, 503. 

Mills, Charles : History of Chivalry, .4,76. 

Minto, William: Characteristics of Eng- 
lish Poets, 119. 

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley: Letters, 
341. 

Montalembert, Count de: Monks of the 

West, The, 26-28, 41, 43. 
More, P. E. : Cambridge Byron, The, 442 
Morison, J. Cotter: Life of Macaulay 

503. 



Morley, Henry : Clement Marot and other 
Essays, 26: English Writers, 26, 41, 
190; Ideal Commonwealths, 185, 276; 
Universal Library, 213, 308. 

Morley, John : Burke, 384, 385 ; Gower, 146. 

Morris, William, 135; Dream of John 
Ball, A, 63, 147 ; News from Nowhere, 
185 ; Prologue to Earthly Paradise, 135 ; 
Sigurd the Volsung, 43. 

Morris and Magnusson : Story of the Vol- 
sung s, The, 43. 

Morris and Skeat: Specimens of Early 
English, 89. 

Moulton, Richard: Shakespeare as a 
Dramatic Artist, 255. 

Myers, F. W. : Essay on Tennyson, 522 ; 
Life of Wordsworth, 442. 

N 

Newell, W. W. : King Arthur and the 

Table Round, 76. 
Newman, J. H. : Apologia pro Vita Sua, 

503, 504. 

Nichol, r J. : Lives of — Byron, 442, Carlyle, 
503. 

Nichols, J. G. : Erasmus, The Praise of 
Folly, and Pilgrimages, etc., 185. 

Noble, J. A. : Sonnet in England, The, 213. 

Noel, R. B. W. : Life of Byron, 442. 

Norton, C. E. : Cathedrals and Cathedral 
Builders, 63; Church Building in the 
Middle Ages, 63 ; Letters and Reminis- 
cences of Carlyle, 503. 

Nutt, Alfred : Studies in the Origin of the 
Holy Grail, 76. 

O 

O'Curry, Eugene: Lectures on the Manu- 
script Materials of Ancient Irish His- 
tory, 27, 28. 

O'Grady, Standish : Coming of Cuculain, 
The, 27 ; Finn and his Companions, 27 ; 
History of Ireland, 27 ; Silva Gadelica, 
28. 

O'Hagan, Colonel John : Translation of 
the Song of Roland, 46-48. 

Oliphant, Mrs. : Introduction to Selections 
in Golden Treasury Series, 399 ; Liter- 
ary Histories of — England, 419, The 
Nineteenth Century, 442, The Victorian 
Age of English Literature, 521. 

Orr, Mrs. Sutherland : Handbook of 
Browning, 522; Life of Browning, 522. 

P 

Page, H. A. : Life and Writings of De 
Quincey, 455. 



INDEX 



541 



Palgrave, F. T.: Landscape in Poetry' 

from Homer to Tennyson, 63. 
Pater, Walter, 442. 
Pattison, Mark: Life of Milton, 297. 
Perceval: Fserie Queene, Bks. I. and II. , 

227. 

Percy's Reliques, 165, 399. 
Perry, T. S. : Eighteenth Century Litera- 
ture, 318. 

Phelps, W. : Beginnings of the Romantic 

Movement, 399. 
Planche, J. R. : Cyclopozdia of Costume, 

63. 

Plato : Republic, The, 185. 

Pollard, A. W. : Astrophel and Stella, 202 ; 
Early Illustrated Books, 176; English 
Miracle Plays, Moralities, and Inter- 
ludes, 155; Malory's Morte D' Arthur, 
76; Primer of Chaucer, 119; Works of 
Chaucer, 119. 

Poole, Stanley Lane: Selections from 
Swift, 353. 

Poweil and Vigfusson : Corpus Poeticum 
Boreale, 41, 43. 

Putnam, G. H. : Books and their Makers 
during the Middle Ages, 176. 

R 

Raleigh, W. A. : English Novel, The, 364. 

Rashdall, Hastings : Universities of Eu- 
rope in the Middle Ages, The, 62. 

Rhys, Ernest, 27 : Literary History of 
Ireland, 28: Literary Pamphlets, 202; 
Sidney's Lyrics, 202. 

Rhys, John: Lectures on the Origin, etc., 
of Religion, as illustrated by Celtic 
Heathendom, 28 ; Studies in the Ar- 
thurian Legend, 28,76. 

Richardson, Samuel: Novel of Manners, 
The, 364. 

Rigg, J. M. : More's Life of Pico delta 
Mirandola, 185. 

Ritchie, Mrs. : Introductions to Bio- 
graphical edition of Thackeray, 485; 
Records of Tennyson, Raskin, and 
Browning, 503, 522. 

Ritson, J. : Ancient Songs and Ballads, 
165. 

Roemer, Jean: Norman in Gaul, The (in 
Origins of the English People and the 
English Language) , 47. 

Rolfe, W. J. : Shakespeare, 254. 

Roper, William : Life of More (in Camelot 
edition of Utopia) , 185. 

Rossetti, D. G. : King's Tragedy, The, 165. 

Rossetti, W. M. : D. G. Rossetti as De- 
signer and Writer, 521; Livesof — Keats, 
443, Shelley, 442; Selections from 
Blake, 410. 



' Rousseau, J. J., 385. 
Royce , Josiah : Sjririt of Modern Philoso- 
phy, The, 385, 419. 
Ruskin, John: Bibliotheca Pastorum, 
202; Ethics of the Dust, 147; Fors 
Clavigera, 202, 341, 455 ; Modern Paint- 
ers, 63; Praeterita, 503, 504; Seven 
Lamps of Architecture, The, 63 ; Stones 
of Venice, 60, 63. 
Russell, G. W. E. : Letters of Matthew 

Arnold, 503. 
Rye, W. B. : England as seen by For- 
eigners in the Days of Elizabeth and 
James, 190. 



S 

Saintsbury, G. E. B., 88; Elizabethan 
Literature, 190; Flourishing of Ro- 
mance, etc., 76; History of Nineteenth 
Century Literature, 442, 467 ; Lives of — 
Arnold, 503, Dry den, 329; Short His- 
tory of English Literature, 318. 

Saunders, J.: Chaucer's Canterbury 
Tales, 119. 

Schelling, Felix: Elizabethan Lyrics, 213. 
Scherer, Edmond: Essays on English 

Literature, 297. 
Scott, Sir Walter: Ivanhoe, 63 ; Journal, 

455; Kenilworth, 190. 
Scudder, H. E. : Cambridge Keats, The, 

443. 

Scudder, V. D. : Introduction to Prome- 
theus Unbound, 443; Introduction to 
Writings of John Ruskin, 503, 504 ; Life 
of the Spirit in the Modern English 
Poets, The, 521 ; Social Ideals in English 
Letters, 147, 185, 353, 485, 503. 

Seebohm, Frederic: Oxford Reformers, 
The, 184. 

Shairp, J. C. : Aspects of Poetry , 442; 
Life of Burns, 410; Poetic Interpreta- 
tion of Nature, The, 442. 

Sharp, William, 27; Centenary Edition 
of Ossian's Poems, 399; D. G. Rossetti, 
521 ; Introduction to Sonnets (in Can- 
terbury Poets), 213; Life of Browning, 
522; Lyra Celtica, 26, 28. 

Shelley, P. B. : Prefaces, 419. 

Shelley Society Publications, 443. 

Sherwood. Margaret P.: Dryden's Dra- 
matic Theory and Practice, 329. 

Shorthouse, J. H. : Facsimile of The 
Temple, 276. 

Sigerson, George: Bards of the Gael and 
Gall, 28. 

Skeat, W. : Complete Works of Chaucer, 

119; Langland, 147. 
Skene, W. F. : Book of the Dean of Lis- 



542 



INDEX 



more, The, 25, 27; Celtic Scotland, 27; 
Four Ancient Books of Wales, The, 21, 
27, 28. 

Smith, Gold win : Lives of — Jane Austen, 
455, Cowper, 399. 

Sommer, Oskar: Malory's Morte D' Ar- 
thur, 76. 

Sonnets on the Sonnet, 214. 

Spedding, James: Bacon, 212. 

Stedman, E. C. : Victorian Poets, 521. 

Stephen, Leslie, 442, 455, 503; History 
of English Thought in the Eighteenth 
Century, 319, 341, 384, 385; Hours in a 
Library, 341, 364; Lives of — Johnson, 
374, Pope, 341, Swift, 353. 

Stephens, Kate: Johnsori's Pope, 341. 

Stephens, Thomas: Literature of the 
Cymry, The, 27, 28. 

Stevenson, R. L. : Essay on Burns, 410. 

Stokes, Whitley: Tripartite Life of St. 
Patrick, 28. 

Stokes and Windisch : Irische Texte, 27, 28. 

Strunk, William : Dryden's Essays on the 
Drama, 329. 

Stuhbs, William: Constitutional History 
of England, 41. 

Swinburne, A. C, 442; Monographs, 264, 
410; Study of Shakespeare, J., 255. 

Sydney, W. C. : England and the English 
in the Eighteenth Century, 318, 353; 
Social Life in England from the Res- 
toration to the Revolution, 318. 

Symonds, J. A. : Article on Renaissance (in 
Encyc. Brit.), 176; Lives of — Sidney, 
202, Shelley, 442; Renaissance in Italy, 
The, 176; Shakespeare's Predecessors, 
234. 

Symons, Arthur: Introduction to Study 
of Browning, 522. 

T 

Taine, H. A. : English Literature, 191, 
318, 364. 

Ten Brink, Bernhard, 184, 185: English 

Literature to Wyclif, 41. 
Tennyson, Alfred : Idylls of the King, 76 ; 

Sir Galahad, 76 ; Voyage of Maeldune, 

The, 27. 

Tennyson, Hallam : Life of Tennyson, 522. 

Thackeray, W. M. : English Humorists, 
353 ; Henry Esmond, 353. 

Thornbury, G. W.: Shakespeare's Eng- 
land, 190. 

Traill, H. D. : Life of Coleridge, 442 ; New 
Fiction, The, 364; Social England, 41, 
63, 147, 190, 276, 467. 



Trelawney, E. J. : Essay on Byron, 442. 
Trevelyan, Sir G. O. : Life of Macaulay, 
503. 

Trollope, Anthony: Life of Thackeray, 
485. 

Tulloch, J. : English Puritanism and its 
Leaders, 308. 

Turner, Sharon : History of the Anglo- 
Saxons, 41. 

Tynan, Katherine, 27. 

V 

Van Dyke, H. J. : Poetry of Tennyson, 
The, 522. 

Vaughan, C. E. : Introduction to English 

Literary Criticism, 213. 
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